News website Index.hr reported on Thursday that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had met at least three times with members of the mailing group tasked with drafting the Lex Agrokor bill.

Index.hr also said that correspondence shows that Plenkovic was presented with the proposal for the consultants to advise the government for free, and receive their fees for services rendered through Agrokor.

The website said that Plenkovic knew who the authors of the controversial bill were, because he had met with them a week before the law was adopted by the government in April 2017.

Asked on Tuesday whether he felt any responsibility for what has been dubbed the Hotmail Affair on Tuesday, Plenkovic said no, adding that not a single e-mail had been sent to him.

According to Index.hr, he did not receive any of the e-mails, but his advisor did, to her official e-mail address, only hours before Lex Agrokor was adopted. The Prime Minister said on Tuesday that it is normal procedure for his legal affairs advisor to have e-mails with drafts of bills to be approved by the government.

Following two criminal charges that have been filed by political parties Slobodna Hrvatska and Zivi Zid against the former Economy Minister Martina Dalic over e-mail correspondence that had been leaked and published, it was reported on Wednesday that the state’s anti-graft police unit USKOK would take over the investigation into e-mails.

Economy Minister Martina Dalic handed in her resignation on Monday after the publication of e-mail correspondence between her and the consultants and lawyers who had worked on drafting the controversial Lex Agrokor bill in early 2017. In her announcement, Dalic said that the scandal had made her to be seen as a burden to the government and her party.

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