SACKED INA EMPLOYEE ISSUES STATEMENT

ZAGREB, June 10 (Hina) - Vesna Balenovic, a fired employee of the Croatian oil company INA who claims she is in possession of evidence to prove embezzlement in INA, issued a statement today, saying Vice-Premier Slavko Linic helped get rid of incriminating documents by giving the documents she gathered to the internal control service and the INA management. Commenting on a news conference held yesterday by Linic and Economy Minister Goranko Fizulic, Balenovic said in the statement she informed the internal control service and the company management last year about the crime, and after nothing was undertaken she decided to hand the documents to Linic, who returned t to the internal control. "You submitted the entire material prepared for investigative organs to the very people who bare direct responsibility for the omissions and illegal acts," Balenovic said in the statement. She concluded Linic "helped they to coordinate in their criminal destruction and cover up all the incriminating evidence". Asking "where hundreds of millions of kuna which are being sucked out of INA in an organised manner are disappearing," Balenovic claims there has been sufficient time for this to be established, because "every Croatian citizen of average education would very quickly gather from the material how big a crime we are dealing with". The former INA employee says she took seriously Linic's electoral message that he would resolutely fight crime and corruption. Minister Fizulic's thinking is also shameful, Balenovic asserts, as he said that the secretary-general of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), Dorica Nikolic, publicly supported Balenovic exclusively as a member of parliament, not on behalf of the party. (hina) lml