Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) president Jadranka Kosor said on Tuesday she expected the truth to come out at the Fimi Media corruption trial, in which her party is one of the defendants, namely that those responsible be held to account if the court found any wrongdoing, so that those in the party, including herself, who had not done anything illegal, should not suffer.
"I believe the truth will come out, that those responsible, if it was like the former party accountant is now saying, will be held to account, but I also strongly advocate that none of us who didn't receive a cent should suffer," Kosor told reporters.
Asked to comment on former HDZ accountant Branka Pavosevic's statement that Kosor's presidential campaign in 2005 was financed from the party's slush fund, she said her campaign was financed by the HDZ.
"There was no reason at all for me, who had to focus on political work in the campaign, to have suspicions about the way that campaign was financed."
Kosor said that in the period in question, from the end of 2003 to mid-2005, the HDZ's budget was HRK 250 million, adding that the party collected membership fees and received donations, on which there was no limit at the time, and that it spent HRK 5 million on salaries annually.
She said this showed that nobody in the HDZ needed to spend or take even a cent "from some slush fund," reiterating that she had no reason, "not even for a second", to doubt what the party reported as her campaign costs.
"I wasn't in charge of finances. I didn't even hire the (venues) where the (election) programme took place nor did I arrange the posters and the promotional material. There was no reason for any suspicion," Kosor said, adding that Pavosevic's depositions showed that "she subsequently wrote some things regarding me on some papers."
She stressed that she could account for her assets with the salary she had been receiving since 1995, when she became a high ranking politician.
Asked to comment on the fact that former President Stjepan Mesic had been keeping it a secret for two years now from which friend he had received HRK 2 million to buy a flat in an elite Zagreb neighbourhood, Kosor said all state officials, former or incumbent, must publicly prove how they acquired their assets and that this applied to Mesic.
She said that in the 2005 presidential campaign, when Mesic was elected in a runoff, he asked how she had acquired her flat and that the institutions in charge established on a number of occasions that she had acquired it legally.
"I think it would be good both for him and politics that he state (how he bought the flat)," said Kosor, adding that the same principles should apply to Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic.
She said that when he was buying a second flat, Milanovic said he would sell the first one but did not go through with it, adding that he was given a bank loan even though he did not qualify for it.
