Lawyer Anto Nobilo said on Monday that officials of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who held a news conference earlier in the day over his statement to the HTV television, failed to contest his statement that the the anti-corruption investigating agency USKOK should freeze the assets of the HDZ following the findings of investigations into how the money syphoned from public companies ended up with the HDZ.
HDZ vice-presidents Vladimir Seks and Ivan Jaranjak told a news conference in Zagreb on Monday that the ruling party was operating absolutely in compliance with the law regulating the financing of political parties, accusing Nobilo of trying through his interviews and statements to the media "to criminalise and dismantle" the HDZ.
Their news conference shows a "neurosis and panic in the HDZ", Nobilo told reporters, adding that even during the Communist era politicians had not convened news conferences after statements of a lawyer in TV news programmes.
"That was an inappropriate reaction in which they did not deny my statements," Nobilo said.
According to the results of the investigation, the money syphoned from public companies ended up in the HDZ and was spent in the last election campaign or later for the purchase of a BMW or something else. The money trail should be followed and the assets of those who spent that money should be frozen, Nobilo said, adding that the prosecutors should at least impose a mortgage on the HDZ property in the interest of the state.
