Sarinic was talking to reporters outside Zagreb County Court after a failed attempt to make peace with a Croatian emigrant from Switzerland, Radovan Smokvina, whom he had sued for defamation.
Sarinic said he was surprised at recent media reports on secret bank accounts in Graz and Vienna, stressing he knew nothing about them.
Sarinic confirmed that he and the late defence minister Gojko Susak had had power of attorney for the account in Villach, into which money was paid for the defence of Croatia in the early 1990s during the international arms embargo. He added that power of attorney had later also been given to the late finance minister Jozo Martinovic.
Sarinic said he had signed some 20 orders for the purchase of weapons and that during such transactions he had always been given a document specifying the quantity, price and quality of the weapons.
He emphasised that he had kept all relevant ministries informed of such transactions, and that he did not know if Tudjman had also had power of attorney for the account and that the late president had never told him that.
Asked by a reporter if he was aware of any irregularities in the use of the funds while he served as minister of justice, Sarinic's attorney Miroslav Separovic replied in the negative, saying that there probably had been such cases.
Separovic said that state prosecutors should have investigated the matter then if they had any information of wrongdoing, adding that it would be hard to do now.
Sarinic brought defamation charges after Smokvina had accused him in an article in the Rijeka-based newspaper Novi List in July 2005 of misusing the funds raised by Croatian emigrants for the defence of the country.
The article said that on Sarinic's orders the money ended up in the accounts of various companies and was used for the purchase of private airplanes.
At today's court hearing, Smokvina pleaded not guilty to the charges, insisting that he had not said what he was charged with nor had he signed the disputed article or authorised it. He said he just wanted to know where his money had gone.
The author of the article, Gorjana Caleta Car, will be called to the next hearing, which was set for December 11.