ZAGREB, October 4, 2018 – Osijek County Court on Thursday dismissed the appeal of the defence team for Blaž Curić, an agriculture ministry driver, who was arrested in Zagreb on 26 September on suspicion of alerting IT specialist Franjo Varga that he was going to be arrested for creating false text messages. The court’s panel of judges dismissed the defence team’s appeal as unfounded.
Curić was apprehended in Zagreb on suspicion that he had informed Varga that he was about to be arrested for making false text messages for former football mogul Zdravko Mamić, as well as for former Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Tomislav Karamarko and current HDZ deputy president Milijan Brkić, who have denied the allegations.
In June, Osijek County Court sentenced Mamić, who was found guilty of defrauding the Dinamo club and the state budget, to six and a half years in prison pending appeal but he fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina before his verdict was announced. Since along with Croatian citizenship he also holds the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian authorities have refused to extradite him to Croatia. Mamić, his brother Zoran, former Dinamo director Damir Vrbanović and tax agent Milan Pernar were charged with defrauding the club of almost 116 million kuna and the state budget of 12.2 million kuna in unpaid taxes.
Speaking about the scandal, the whip of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) parliamentary group Branko Bačić said on Thursday that, if the media claims about HDZ deputy leader Milijan Brkić are proven to be true, then Brkić’s position will change significantly.
Asked whether he believes Brkić that the claims are misinformation, Bačić said that what he thinks and who he believes is irrelevant. “I primarily trust state institutions and I will wait for the State Prosecutor’s Office (DORH) and the national judiciary to make decisions before I can give my opinion,” Bačić said.
Asked whether Brkić was a burden to the party, Bačić said that “the burden on the party is wrongdoing or unlawful work by any official.” “If that is the case with Milijan Brkić and if it is proven that he did that, that would be a burden to the party. At the moment we are still at a stage of rumours and speculation,” he said.
Asked whether Brkić can function normally considering the accusations, Bačić underscored, “they aren’t accusations yet, just speculation.” “If it were to be proven true, that would significantly change his situation. If the information in the media was shown to be true, then that would significantly change his position. We will deal with that if it gets to that,” Bačić said.
He added that he did not say that he was “opposed to an inquiry commission that would investigate any possible information leaks or abuse of secret services.” “All I said was that it wasn’t possible to establish an inquiry commission if a certain case was part of a court proceeding,” he explained.
We don’t have any problems with a possible inquiry commission to investigate information leaks or possible compromise of services but that motion hasn’t been put forward by the opposition yet. He added that previous inquiry commissions had not led to any results but were used more as a stage for certain politicians to promote themselves.
