The chairman of the National Council monitoring the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy, Zeljko Jovanovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), said on Wednesday that he saw the arrest of Mladen Barisic, Customs Administration head and former treasurer of the ruling HDZ party, as a confirmation of his party's position that the HDZ leadership was a criminal organisation.
"Barisic's arrest proves the SDP's view about the HDZ leadership being the tip of a criminal pyramid that used public companies as cash machines to finance private and party interests," Jovanovic told reporters in parliament.
He called for confiscating all property acquired through corruption, adding that the latest case was an example of political corruption.
"All property acquired through corruption must be taken away, and if the HDZ financed its political campaigns and work with dirty money, then we are not talking about a legal government, but a criminal one," Jovanovic said.
Barisic was arrested in Zagreb this morning on suspicion of involvement in the Fimi Media case.
The media have been linking him with an alleged slush fund in the HDZ that was filled with money which the Fimi Media company, owned by his friend Nevenka Jurak, obtained from deals with public companies.
The anti-corruption agency USKOK launched an investigation against Barisic a few months ago, but he was not arrested at the time, unlike Jurak, who has been in police custody since early August.
