ZAGREB, June 4, 2018 – Interior Minister Davor Božinović said on Monday that the police were considering a report filed by a journalist of the Index.hr web portal Vojislav Mazzocco against War Veterans’ Affairs Minister Tomo Medved, who accused Medved of threatening him, while the minister denied the claims.
“What I know is that the police have received the report and are considering it. I cannot comment on that specific case, because the police are looking into it now and are supposed to establish what really happened,” Božinović said at a ceremony at the Zagreb Police Academy at which special purpose vehicles were delivered to the law enforcement authorities.
The web portal said on Sunday that, a day after Mazzocco’s article was released about the employment of the minister’s son in the state-run security company AKD, Minister Medved telephoned the reporter and threatened him during the conversation.
On Sunday evening, Minister Medved said in a press release that he was sorry to see that his conversation with Mazzocco was perceived by the reporter as an attempt to intimidate him. He adamantly dismissed the interpretation of his conversation as an attempt to threaten the reporter.
The minister is sorry to see that his conversation was perceived and conveyed that way, and the minister only wanted to inform the journalist that he is willing to discuss his work as the war veterans’ minister and his ministry’s performance at any time, but finds it inappropriate that members of his family are put into the limelight on the grounds of insinuations which he rejected a day before, according to the press release.
“Free journalism is one of the values for which Croatian soldiers fought in the Homeland War and Minister Medved is the last one to undermine those values,” the press release says.
Two Opposition parties – the SDP and GLAS – condemned Medved’s call to the reporter and insisted on his resignation.
