Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that he had only briefly seen the allegations that Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) deputy leader, Milijan Brkic, had leaked information in 2011 about police investigations, and announced that he would meet with Brkic before a meeting of the party's senior officials scheduled for Thursday evening.

In its latest edition which hit the newsstands on Tuesday, the Nacional weekly published an article saying it had documents revealing that in 2011 Milijan Brkic – then the national deputy police director – had passed on confidential information about police investigations into an elite prostitution ring, and notified people involved that they were under police surveillance.

Nacional released some police reports which note that Brkic personally leaked information about police probes. The weekly said that even though an internal investigation detected the leak, the then leader of HDZ and interior minister, Tomislav Karamarko, had protected Brkic and buried the report.

“I only briefly saw the article and didn’t have time to be informed about it in detail. I will check, naturally with him too, when I return to Zagreb. This is the first I have heard of this, and at the moment I cannot comment in any more detail,” Plenkovic said in Geneva where he was attending a meeting of the World Economic Forum on Tuesday.

Asked to comment to what extent do these scandals can affect HDZ, Plenkovic said that, for now, this was “difficult to tell.”

“What is important is that we, as a party, and the government, are dealing with the most important issues for Croatia, and that is the economy, resolving problems inherited with Croatia’s transition economy. That is my priority, to maintain stability, to clearly position HDZ as the most responsible centre-right party that has the strength to resolve problems,” Plenkovic said.

“However, I also have to take account that any scandals, anything that needs to be cleared up, should be done so, to the fullest” he said.

Asked whether Brkic should make a statement in the public with regard to this issue, Plenkovic said that that was something he would discuss with him later today.

Later on Tuesday, opposition politicians commented on the revelations published by Nacional.

The leader of the liberal Glas party, Anka Mrak-Taritas, said that the case “finally revealed that Croatia is ruled, rather than governed, by HDZ. All the government institutions are used for conflicts within the HDZ, and we don’t want to live in a a country like that.”

Brkic was also mentioned in the recent Text Message Affair which has led to the arrest of his close friend Blaz Curic, currently employed as the official driver of the agriculture minister Tomislav Tolusic. Curic was arrested on the suspision of warning one Franjo Varga – a former police IT specialist – before Varga’s own arrest earlier this month.

Varga in turn is suspected of having created forged text message correspondence for a number of clients, including convicted football boss Zdravko Mamic, former owner of food and retail group Agrokor, Ivica Todoric, who both used them as arguments that court trials against them were framed.

According to media speculations, in his deposition Varga also said he had created fake correspondence for Brkic, which he presumably used in intra-party conflicts to discredit members of opposing party factions.

Former interior minister Ranko Ostojic of the Social Democrats (SDP), who took over from Karamarko in December 2011 and served until 2016, told Hina on Tuesday that a “minister is not authorised to interfere in police investigations, or decisions made by the state prosecution.”

Ostojic succeeded Karamarko in that post after a coalition led by the SDP won parliamentary elections in 2011.

The Vecernji List daily cited an unnamed friend of Brkic, who reportedly implied that if the information published by Nacional was true, that Ostojic would have acted upon it after assuming office.

SDP MP Gordan Maras said the latest allegations against Brkic showed that a war was being waged within the HDZ party for the entire public to witness, adding that this should be most strongly condemned, and that the matter should be discussed by a parliamentary inquiry commission.

Later on Tuesday, the interior ministry issued a short press release only saying that evidence of leaks in that specific investigation had been turned over to the state prosecutor’s office in June 2011.

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