The video recording was posted on November 27 by the user named RemetinecLIVE. The timecode on the footage shows that the recording was edited from the original running time of about 50 minutes to 12 minutes and six seconds.

Speaking of the functioning of the ruling HDZ party and the government, Sanader is heard saying that under his leadership it was organised in accordance with "democratic practice in the most developed European countries". He said that his relations with his colleagues was strictly official and that he was not friends with any of them.

Sanader said that it was not his duty to control party officials. "That was the duty of the party's Secretariat-General, National Council, Main Committee and Presidency," he said, dismissing the charges against him as lies.

He could not say when exactly Mladen Barisic had been appointed the party's treasurer, adding that he thought it was in 2002 or 2003. "The Presidency decided that he should be treasurer and Bozo Biskupic his deputy, that's what I remember."

Sanader described as "a monstrous lie" the claim by Barisic that Barisic had given him money, stressing that he had purchased all his real estate before the time relevant to the indictments against him. "There's no way he gave me any money," he said, rejecting it as "a failed fabrication".

Speaking of charges of conspiracy with Barisic and Nevenka Jurak to syphon funds from state-owned companies, agencies and government ministries through the Fimi Media marketing firm owned by Jurak, Sanader said he did not know Jurak. "I've no idea who that woman is," he said.

On the subject of appointment of CEOs of public companies, Sanader said he had not known any of them before their appointment and that they had been proposed by government ministers or members of the HDZ Presidency.

Sanader's lawyer Cedo Prodanovic commented on the leakage of the footage in an interview with Croatian Television on Thursday evening. He said that the ball was now in the court of the national anti-corruption office USKOK or the State Attorney's Office, which he said could now take legal action against those responsible for disclosing confidential information.

Prodanovic said that the two institutions had so far failed to take such action, although they should have done it by virtue of their office, because, in his opinion, information leakage suited the State Attorney's Office.

USKOK said in a statement that it would ask the police to urgently investigate who had made the footage available to the public and thus committed a crime of disclosure of an official secret under Article 351 of the Penal Code.