The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) is investigating how a deposition given by former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader during his first interview with the USKOK deputy chairwoman was leaked to the media and whether the Vecernji List daily and its journalist committed the crime of publication of an official secret by releasing details of Sanader's deposition.
After the Zagreb-based daily published parts of Sanader's deposition in its issues of 9 and 10 October, USKOK on Monday launched an investigation to find out who disclosed the information from that file, USKOK said on its web site on Monday afternoon, giving only the initials of Ivo Sanader, who is suspected of fraud in several cases.
The articles in Vecernji List show that its reporter could obtain that information only by viewing the DVD on which the suspect's deposition was recorded, the agency said.
It was established that apart from USKOK and the suspect's defence team, copies of the DVD were also available to the defence teams of others suspects in the case in question.
USKOK emphasised in its statement that it was tendentious to claim that the copies were provided from USKOK to unauthorised people.
"The purpose of those claims is to shift attention from possible offenders and to discredit the work of the State Attorney's Office in order to create an impression that such 'information is leaking from USKOK'," the agency said.
USKOK said it had warned responsible people at Vecernji List several times about the ban on the publication of information from prosecution in cases under USKOK jurisdiction, if the publication is not allowed by the USKOK chairman, as it was in contravention of the Penal Code.
Since the warnings were in vain, USKOK launched the investigation to establish whether the daily had committed the crime of publication of an official secret.
