HDZ under investigation?

PM says didn't break any laws by writing to state prosecutor

23.07.2011 u 01:37

Bionic
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Responding to questions from the press about media reports that she asked the State Prosecutor's Office (DORH) if her Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party was under investigation, Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said in Gospic on Friday that she wrote to the DORH as president of the HDZ requesting information about reports in one newspaper and that she was entitled to do so and did not break any laws.

Commenting on Social Democratic Party (SDP) president Zoran Milanovic's statement about her letter to the DORH, Kosor said he had double standards and that the SDP would lead the state under double standards.

That won't do, because we organised the state, institutions are completely independent and will remain so, said Kosor.

Asked if the DORH was investigating the HDZ, Kosor said she was not the DORH and that she did not know, but that everyone who broke the law would be held to account. She added that unlike her, the SDP thought that its prominent members should not be investigated.

Asked to comment on allegations that some incumbent ministers would be questioned as witnesses in an elite prostitution ring scandal, Kosor said she knew nothing about it and that prosecutorial bodies were entitled to do their job, regardless of someone's name or function.

"We know that some prominent SDP members are in that ring, but if there's also someone from the circles you mention, neither the government nor I will prevent the investigation," said Kosor.

Commenting on President Ivo Josipovic's statement about her request that Hague war crimes tribunal indictee Goran Hadzic be extradited to Croatia, Kosor said the government realised that Croatia must cooperate with the UN court and honour its constitutional law on cooperation with the tribunal, but that the government had nonetheless adopted a conclusion requesting the DORH and the Justice Ministry to do everything so that Hadzic was brought to justice in Croatia as well.

"Hadzic was convicted in two trials in Croatia for war crimes he committed in Croatia and there is also an indictment in another case, so we think that, if possible, he should be held to account in Croatia too for the crimes he committed as an executor of Milosevic's Greater Serbia policy," said Kosor.