ZAGREB, April 1 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's internal policy and national security committee on Thursday endorsed a report from the Counterintelligence Agency (POA) which said that this agency had not tapped telephones of six
reporters in the last 15 months.
tika-Obrana-Parlament
ZAGREB, April 1 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's internal policy and
national security committee on Thursday endorsed a report from the
Counterintelligence Agency (POA) which said that this agency had not
tapped telephones of six reporters in the last 15 months.#L#
Speaking to reporters after a closed-door session, committee chairman
Ivan Jarnjak said that after the Council for the Civilian Supervision
of Security Services analysed the POA's activities, it found that no
measures of secret collection of data, i.e. tapping of reporters'
phones, had been taken and that no files on the matter had been made.
Four of six reporters whose telephones had allegedly been bugged
recently sent a request to the Council asking for an investigation
into media reports that the POA had allegedly tapped their phones on
suspicion of their collaboration with foreign secret services on the
movements of fugitive general Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the UN
war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The chairman of the Council for the Civilian Supervision of Security
Services, Vlatko Cvrtila, said that after an examination of the POA
data base and visits to its offices, the council had not established
that the POA had monitored reporters.
The parliamentary committee turned down a motion by Pero Kovacevic of
the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) that former POA head Franjo Turek,
former chief of police Ranko Ostojic and the incumbent Justice
Minister Vesna Skare Ozbolt be called for interviews because of an
alleged report by the POA in which some reporters were said to have
falsely briefed foreign secret services on Gotovina's movements.
In this context, Kovacevic quoted Croatian President Stjepan Mesic as
saying in the latest issue of the Feral Tribune weekly that Turek had
shown him this report and warned him that some reporters gave false
information to representatives of the British Embassy on Gotovina's
whereabouts.
Both Jarnjak and Cvrtila declined to comment on the existence of such
a report.
Asked by journalists whether the committee would try to find out if
the POA acquired the information on links between reporters and
British secret agents by tapping the phones of the British embassy,
Jarnjak said:" I am sorry, but in which country can you get such
information?"
(Hina) ms sb