"This was a petty, dirty break into the security system", Milanovic said at a government session, adding that "the one who, by bombarding the public with an espionage scandal, wanted to flush out a fox, flushed out a grizzly or a buffalo."

"The public has been bombarded with scandals of espionage. Some people can't do without it, they are simply immersed in it", Milanovic said, referring to the president of the opposition Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Tomislav Karamarko. He added that citizens would very soon realise what this was all actually about.

Milanovic said this scandal was increasingly looking like Watergate as someone, literally and metaphorically, broke into the state security system, taking documents that did not belong to them and was now being caught in a series of lies day by day.

Milanovic said the truth would be established by the parliamentary Domestic Policy and National Security Committee and not by a parliamentary commission of inquiry. He said only that committee had the right to see documents received by the president and prime minister, adding that those who "suggested that a commission be set up had completely different motives than to disclose the truth."

We will request that the truth be established because someone broke into the security system and obtained documents they were not entitled to see at the time, Milanovic said, adding that this was a crime.

He said this latest scandal was not about wire-tapping but about a break-in, and that he had no illusions that someone would be seriously held to account.

Milanovic said he would not let the former head of the Security and Intelligence Agency, Josip Buljevic, who "is being dragged into the scandal", be left on the street. If someone in the security system has not broken the law, and there are no such indications, they will be protected in every sense, he added.