The head of the northern Adriatic Istria County, Ivan Jakovcic, held a news conference in Porec on Friday to comment on an ongoing investigation into Hypo Alpe Adria Bank and local projects that are financed also by that Austrian bank, saying that he would not tolerate his being linked with criminal circles as he had not done anything illegal and had a clear conscience.
"I request that Austrian and Croatian prosecutors and police state their position on the case and reveal the names of the people involved in it. I am asking for that because I am fed up with political nobodies in Croatia and Istria tarnishing my reputation," Jakovcic said.
Jakovcic, who is leader of the Istrian Democratic Party (IDS), said that he talked in Zagreb on Thursday, at his own request, with Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic, Minister of the Interior Tomislav Karamarko, and Austrian Ambassador to Croatia Jan Kickert, asking him to connect him with Austrian prosecutors or the commission investigating the Hypo case.
"If they want to talk with me, I am ready, but if the Austrian side ignores my request, I will hold a news conference in Vienna," Jakovcic said, adding that he would send a letter to the chairman of the Austrian parliamentary commission investigating the Hypo case, Rolf Holub, requesting to meet with him during Holub's visit to Istria.
Answering a reporter's question, Jakovcic said that he was not involved in the operations of the Hypo bank in Istria and that he did not help the bank start operating in Croatia, nor did he have any relations with it before he became county head in 2001.
"The IDS has so far taken seven loans, two of which were taken from the Hypo bank, and they were all repaid. That proves that there are no black funds in our party," the IDS leader said.
