An independent member of the Croatian Parliament and former prime minister, Ivo Sanader, on Wednesday rejected media reports saying that he was being investigated in three criminal cases.
Sanader was speaking to reporters outside the Parliament chamber before a parliamentary debate on the work of state attorneys' offices in 2009. He denied that a former treasurer of the ruling HDZ party, Mladen Barisic, or anyone else had given him any money illegally, stressing that he knew nothing about his former party having been financed illegally.
When asked if he had any knowledge of the existence of a slush fund in the HDZ, he replied: "Let the institutions that are dealing with this matter say their bit about it."
Sanader dismissed as untrue media reports that he was being investigated in the cases of the Fimi Media marketing agency, the state-owned power company HEP and one involving malfeasance in the INA oil company and the Podravka food company.
"That's not true. What can be seen from our media, or rather from some of our media, is that in this country there probably exist two (chief) state attorney's offices -- one, official body, that is independent under the Constitution and the other, parallel one, that exerts pressure on the official body," Sanader said.
He said he intended to draw attention to that problem during today's debate.
When asked if he would support the report on the work of state attorneys' offices, due to be submitted by Chief State Attorney Mladen Bajic, Sanader said that he first had to hear the report.
