A Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) official said Saturday that MP Zlatko Hasanbegovic of the Independents for Croatia party contributed to the decision of the Carinthian diocese to ban this year's Mass at Bleiburg by spreading fake news.

The Catholic Church of Carinthia, or rather the Gurk-Klagenfurt Diocese, earlier this month denied permission for this year’s Mass in theLoibach field near Bleiburg as part of a ceremony commemorating members of Nazi-allied Croatian forces killed there at the end of World War II.

Public Administration Minister and political secretary of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Lovro Kuscevic, said in an interview with the Vecernji List daily, which hit the newsstands on Saturday, that Hasanbegovic had falsely accused Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic of being behind the Mass ban.

“I see that Hasanbegovic has joined the communication trend called fake news,” Kuscevic said.

“The HDZ just proposed and supported returning sponsorship over Bleiburg to the Croatian Parliament. Prime Minister and HDZ president Andrej Plenkovic wholeheartedly supports the holding of the commemoration, but I am afraid that it was the actions of Hasanbegovic that contributed to the Carinthian diocese’s decision to ban the mass,” he said.

The Minister also commented on the announcement by Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) leader Milorad Pupovac that he could leave the government over the burning of an effigy of him at a Mardi Gras carnival in the southern coastal town of Kastel Sucurac, saying that he refused to believe that Pupovac could base his political decision motivated by carnival events.

“I do not wish to comment on carnival events, but it is a tradition in Dalmatia to burn effigies representing public figures during Mardi Gras celebrations…There was no hate speech there. Pupovac is an experienced politician and I refuse to believe that he was making his political decisions motivated by carnival events and that this could cause his leaving the coalition,” Kuscevic said.