GREATE ARGUMENT

Fierce conflict at the very top of power: Who must have known about Uskok's investigation into the Janaf affair Ranko Ostojic denies President Zoran Milanovic: 'I only knew about the investigations at the end' By: Slavica LukićPosted: September 22, 2020 8:28 pm Zoran Milanović, Ranko Ostojić, Andrej Plenković and Ivo Josipović Zoran Milanović, Ranko Ostojić, Andrej Plenković and Ivo Josipović Zeljko Puhovski / Damjan Tadic / Zeljko Hajdinjak Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail "The Minister of the Interior receives information about the criminal investigation after the investigation is completed. He has no right to interfere in the investigation, influence or order any action. After its completion, he is obliged to inform the head of the government in which he is a minister about the investigation. " This is the written and rather abbreviated answer that we received from the former Minister of the Interior in his government, Ranko Ostojić, after the sharp speech of President Zoran Milanović about the circumstances of the Janaf affair . After Milanović's speech, the journalists tried to clarify whether the Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović knew in time that the police had been suspecting the long-term President of the Management Board Janaf Dragan Kovačević for accepting HRK 1.96 million in bribes from entrepreneur Krešo Petek since November 11, 2019. whether he informed Prime Minister Plenković of this fact before February 6 this year, ie before the Government proposed Kovačević for another term at the head of Janaf, and the company's supervisory board confirmed the proposal. Appointment On Tuesday, Milanovic made a series of very harsh public accusations against Prime Minister Plenković, Minister Božinović, as well as the State Attorney's Office and USKOK on the occasion of the latest corruption scandal related to Janaf. He called out Božinović and Plenković that in February this year, when they proposed Kovačević for a new term at the head of Janaf, they knew that he was suspected of accepting bribes, but they nevertheless proposed him for that position. In his speech, Milanović problematized, in his opinion, the very strange course of the investigation and the actions of USKOK and DORH in the Janaf affair. Milanović publicly asked them why they did not arrest the suspects on November 11, 2019, when they caught entrepreneur Krešo Petek carrying 1.96 million kuna to the "club" in Slovenska 9, where Kovačević was meeting with a number of people. "When I saw how long the process lasted, how these actions took place, how they followed that entrepreneur with the money he picked up at the bank and went to hand it over, so they had a 'corpus delicti' and at that moment it is known what is being done. investigation, unless the target is the prime minister, and he is not. Otherwise, you stopped doing your job, to stop the investigation for ten months, to find two mayors, known or not to the rest of Croatia. What has been going on for ten months? ” President Milanović asked and added that he, as the president of the state, has the right to warn of irregularities, of "mufflers and poachers". Arrests in investigations, he said, should be made when evidence is caught, otherwise the evidence decays. Barisic and the elections He called out Minister Božinović, who, as he claims, must have known that the investigation was ongoing. He stated that he knew everything about the manner in which the prime minister was informed about such situations, because he was the prime minister himself. "The director of the SOA did not know about such things, only the Ministry of the Interior could inform me about them." He publicly asked Božinović if he had informed the Prime Minister in February this year before Kovačević was appointed to a new term at the helm of Janaf that Kovačević had been compromised. RELATED NEWS 8018165 ANSWER TO MILANOVIC Turudic: If you knew everything, and you shouldn't have known anything, then it is very realistic to expect that you acted WITHOUT BRAKE Milanovic: What Turudic is doing is unsustainable and debilitating the country. He was a bad student and you can see that Milanović also referred to the information that the husband of the former president was also present at the lunch at which an envelope with a 1.96 million kuna bribe was handed over to Kovačević on November 11, 2019: “ Jakov Kitarovićis the decor. The man happened to be there. " He pointed out that there were more people in the "club" on the day of the bribe. "This is a terrible scandal. I do not point a finger at anyone, I just ask the DORH and USKOK, which are conducting the investigation, why no action was taken. That is the real question ", said Milanović and concluded:" It's like when you go to hunt King Kong, and in the end you shoot a chicken ". Milanovic concluded that "something much more vicious and serious is hidden in this affair". Prime Minister Andrej Plenković firmly rejected Milanović's claims that on February 6 this year, when the Government proposed Dragan Kovačević for another term at the helm of Janaf, he knew that he was suspected of accepting 1.96 million kuna in bribes. Independence "If I or Minister Ćorić, who was the competent minister at the time, knew something like that, he would certainly not have been appointed president of the administration," said the prime minister. Plenković reminded that Dražen Barišić (Mayor of Velika Gorica) was put on the list for the parliamentary elections in June this year and rhetorically asked: "Would we have put him on the list in June if we had known that he would be detained three months later?" "We certainly wouldn't," the prime minister said during his stay in Koprivnica, where journalists asked him to comment on Milanovic's accusations. Plenković pointed out that there is a capital difference between Milanović's understanding and the view of the work of the police, USKOK and DORH and his understanding. "It doesn't matter who heads the government. The head of the Government can be someone who is interested in what the DORH is doing, what the police are doing, what USKOK is doing and who, I guess, wants to know in detail what is being done in which investigation. Well, look, I don't care. It is my policy as the Prime Minister, and even the President of the HDZ, that I do not want to know at all what USKOK is doing and what the police are doing. And that is the fight against corruption - not even knowing, let alone influencing. It is crucial for the public to know how someone behaves like the Prime Minister in these matters, "Plenković said. When asked if Minister Božinović knew that an investigation was being conducted against Kovačević, Considering that Milanović claims that as Prime Minister he knew all the important things about investigations, the journalists asked Plenković what is the procedure for informing the Prime Minister about investigations and what is the standard? "There are no standards. During my four years in office, no minister or director of police came to a meeting to confess to me what was happening with some investigations and some cases. That's not my job. Ask Milanovic how he knew as prime minister, "the prime minister replied. The husband of the former president, Jakov Kitarović, confirmed on Tuesday that the information that he was in the "club" in Slovenska Street last fall, which the media associate with the suspect in Kovačević, was correct, but noted that he did not see anything suspicious there. "I stayed there for a short time. I did not notice any suspicious actions, nor was I in business relations with anyone ", it is stated in the announcement of the attorney Jakov Kitarović. He adds that if judicial institutions call him as a witness, he will be happy to respond and give his testimony about his findings. Former President Ivo Josipovic: 'If SOA knew that, both Plenković and Milanović should have known' Analysts are wrong, claiming that the SOA was not allowed to inform Prime Minister Plenković and President Milanović about following Dragan Kovačević and others in the Janaf affair, will explain Ivo Josipović, former President of the Republic of Croatia. Josipović knows very well how the connection between SOA and the state leadership works, because while he was in Pantovčak he received reports from the Agency on security opportunities. "The SOA should have informed the prime minister and the president, of course, if the intelligence community knew what was going on. Because in this way SOA protects Plenković and Milanović by informing them about the situation in an important company. But, I will repeat, if the SOA knew about the investigation, and we have no information about that ", said Josipović. There is only one case when one of them would not have to be informed about the investigation: "It is a situation if the prime minister or the president would be included in the investigation, but it is a theoretical possibility," Josipovic concluded.