ZAGREB, April 15, 2019 – Without revealing the suspects’ identities, police on Monday said that they had filed a criminal report against HDZ party deputy president and Deputy Parliament Speaker Milijan Brkić, his brother, and Franjo Varga and Blaž Curić, the two suspects in the fake text messages case, for committing “offences against computer systems, programmes and data to the detriment of a number of persons.”
A police statement read that members of the National Police Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (PNUSKOK) in Osijek have completed “a criminal investigation into four Croatian nationals, aged 37, 49, 50 and 50, and on 15 April 2019 filed with the Osijek Municipal Prosecutor’s Office a criminal report due to the suspicion that they had committed offences against computer systems, programmes and data to the detriment of several persons.”
“There is reasonable suspicion that over a longer period of time one of the suspects, acting at the instigation and with the assistance of the other suspects, committed a number of offences involving the unlawful interception of computer data and computer abuse, thus unlawfully accessing the content of the injured parties’ user accounts and making it available to the other suspects,” the police statement said.
According to media reports, Brkić was questioned last week for intercepting his former wife’s emails by using the services of Franjo Varga, a former Interior Ministry IT expert accused in the fake texts case.
The media said Brkić’s brother Jozo was also accused in the interception case and that the police allegedly found out about it by examining the computers and documents seized in the case against Varga and Blaž Curić, former chauffeur of Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolušić and a close friend of Brkić.
The USKOK anti-corruption office suspects Varga and Curić in the fake texts case of obstructing the collection of evidence and of aiding and abetting in the commission of said crime.
Prosecutors contend that Varga created fake text messages, including for former football mogul Zdravko Mamić, and that last September Curić warned Varga that he was under investigation.
After the affair came to light, the media claimed that Varga’s services were also used by former HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko and Brkić, both of whom denied the accusations.
More news about Milijan Brkić can be found in the Politics section.
