Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic on Wednesday announced that the government's bill regulating judicial cooperation with the EU in criminal matters, which is in parliamentary procedure, will go ahead as proposed with the objective of protecting participants in the Homeland War and announced that the government would propose amendments to the Constitution that would differently regulate the issue of sanctioning politically motivated crimes. He slammed the Catholic Church and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) because they had accused him of protecting criminals.
Milanovic harshly reacted to earlier statements by the HDZ and Church officials in response to an arrest warrant issued by Germany for the extradition of a former senior Yugoslav secret service official suspected for his role in the murder of Croatian emigrant Stjepan Djurekovic in Germany 30 years ago - and said that the HDZ and the Church had accused his government of protecting criminals.
"Therefore criminals, but not those whom they refer to, because I cannot condemn anyone in advance, were protected by the Church and the HDZ these past twenty years, by keeping quiet as if nothing had happened and waited for time to pass", Milanovic claimed opening today's session of the cabinet, stressing that his government was enforcing the law and announced that the government would propose amendments to the Constitution.
He added that the Opposition had not proposed a single solution to the difficult economic situation we are all in.
"Nothing. Adamantly, just a few days before our entering the European Union, deep ideology and ideological divisions. Yesterday too, the day before that too - from the highest officials in the Church, priests", Milanovic said, assessing that they obviously wanted to provoke him.
"We won't react emotionally", he said and stressing that the accusation that he was protecting criminals "was a lot more serious than lamented stories of 'structural sins'.
"Thereby you are accused of protecting criminals. We are protecting criminals. I don't know which criminals this refers to, I cannot point a finger at anyone, particularly not someone whom the state prosecution has said is not guilty and that this was concluded together with the Counter-Intelligence Agency (POA), whom this current politician once headed", Milanovic said to his cabinet members.
"Four days prior to entering the EU and one day after appearing in public, authorised, that we are proposing to introduce a constitutional provision that such crimes are not subject to statute of limitations, they are accusing us of protecting criminals", Milanovic said. He added that the "Church and HDZ had protected criminals these past twenty years."
"We came to power, we are enforcing the law and now we will propose amendments to the Constitution because the HDZ obviously does not dare to propose an amendment to the law on extradition, they are afraid", claimed Milanovic.
"Let the courts conduct trials but I guarantee that not one of you will be a witness in these procedures, or anything beyond that, but masses from the HDZ and other structures will be. Is that what you want?".
"There is no hiding. As long as the people in the HDZ and the Church are ready to go this far, I am prepared to go even further. They can say what they want, our conscience is clear and not one of us will be seen in court. But for some people this just can't get out of their genes. Well, they will see now", he said, adding that the bill governing judicial cooperation with the EU in criminal matters, would be adopted just as it has been proposed with a start date as of 2002 with the one objective to protect people who participated in the Homeland War in the 1990's".
"If there were crimes, then we will deal with them", he reiterated, stressing that in that way Croatia was doing a favour to itself and EU member states.
They are doing that out of necessity, including Germany (with its request for Pekovic's extradition) because we had not dealt with this, he said.
