ZAGREB, Sept 3 (Hina) - The leader of the Croatian Bloc (HB) party, Ivic Pasalic, has claimed that an article in "Nacional" weekly about his involvement in "racketeering" for the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) is the start of a
mudslinging campaign aimed against his party and himself, for which he accused HDZ president Ivo Sanader and the incumbent authorities.
ZAGREB, Sept 3 (Hina) - The leader of the Croatian Bloc (HB) party,
Ivic Pasalic, has claimed that an article in "Nacional" weekly
about his involvement in "racketeering" for the Croatian
Democratic Union (HDZ) is the start of a mudslinging campaign aimed
against his party and himself, for which he accused HDZ president
Ivo Sanader and the incumbent authorities. #L#
"The timing chosen to publish the article was agreed by Ivo Pukanic
and his media sponsor Sanader, so as to launch a campaign against
the HB and shift public attention away from what has been going on in
the HDZ," Pasalic said at a news conference in parliament on
Wednesday.
Pasalic dismissed as a fabrication Nacional's claim that the owner
of the bankrupt Glumina Bank, Marko Marcinko, had given him 1.5
million German marks for the HDZ's electoral campaign in 1999.
Marko Marcinko has been sentenced to seven years in prison for
white-collar crime.
Commenting on Marcinko's reported statement to the Office for the
Prevention of Corruption and Crime (USKOK) in 2001 about Pasalic's
involvement in "racketeering", the HB president said that the
incumbent authorities had ordered the prosecution to rig any
evidence against him so as to divert public attention from the
disastrous results of their rule, from the foreign debt and the
break-down of the state finance to foreign policy gaffs.
He announced that he would file "appropriate" lawsuits over the
Nacional article.
Commenting on Slovenia's withdrawing its ambassador to Croatia,
Pasalic said that it was a "drastic and inappropriate move", which
caused the deterioration of friendly relations between the two
countries only because of "an obviously true statement by Minister
Picula that Slovenia has no territorial contact with the open
sea".
Pasalic said that by having initialled the border agreement with
Slovenia Prime Minister Ivica Racan had tried to cede part of
Croatia's territory to Slovenia, and that despite the parliament's
refusal to ratify the agreement, he had caused considerable damage
to the country.
"The dispute between Slovenia and Croatia offers the EU the
possibility to settle the situation in the Adriatic outside
international law. We can expect the EU to conclude that there is a
need to find a compromise, which, given Croatia's right to
unilaterally proclaim an economic zone, would be contrary to its
national interests," Pasalic said.
(hina) rml