Deputy Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Milijan Brkic, who left the party's offices early afternoon after the presidency's meeting, told reporters that "everything is great" and that he would never leave the HDZ.

Meanwhile, party leader, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic subsequently said that they concluded that institutions were expected to continue performing their activities as they had done to date in a lawful and independent manner.

“Everything is great, as you can see, I am alive and well,” Brkic told numerous reporters as he was leaving the party offices following the leadership’s three-hour meeting.

Asked whether any member of the party’s presidency had called on him to step down from any function, Brkic said, “there is no stepping down.”

Commenting on speculation that he would be leaving HDZ, Brkic answered: “Never.”

Plenkovic, who came out from the party’s main office after Brkic, said that he had initiated a discussion about Brkic at the meeting and that it was concluded that institutions need to continue with their activities.

“I raised the matter about Deputy Speaker Milijan Brkic, he presented his stance and we concluded that state institutions need to continue with their activities as they have been doing so far, lawfully and independently. We will see how how the story will be developed further,” Plenkovic said.

Economy Minister Darko Horvat previously told reporters that there had not been any drastic decisions made at the meeting and that they did not discuss any individuals and that there was no reason for any witch hunt.

“Brkic was not under attack nor did he defend himself,” Horvat claimed.

Before the party’s presidency meeting in Zagreb on Tuesday morning,VBrkic said that in a democracy state institutions rather than political parties prosecute crimes.

“Today the inner presidency is holding a regular meeting. The party president proposes topics for the agenda. As far as I know, this is the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and not the Communist Party, thank God. In a democracy there are state institutions in charge of prosecution and those are definitely not political parties,” Brkic said in his comment on media speculations that the HDZ leadership is expected to discuss Brkic’s political fate after he, his brother Jozo Brkic and two more men — Franjo Varga and Blaz Curic — were put under investigation for hacking computer systems.

A police statement released on 15 April read that members of the National Police Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (PNUSKOK) in Osijek had completed “a criminal investigation into four Croatian nationals, aged 37, 49, 50 and 50, and on 15 April 2019 filed with the Osijek Municipal Prosecutor’s Office a criminal report due to the suspicion that they had committed offences against computer systems, programmes and data to the detriment of several persons.”

“There is reasonable suspicion that over a longer period of time one of the suspects, acting at the instigation and with the assistance of the other suspects, committed a number of offences involving the unlawful interception of computer data and computer abuse, thus unlawfully accessing the content of the injured parties’ user accounts and making it available to the other suspects,” the police statement said.

The prosecutorial authorities in Osijek have recently stated they have launched a confidential investigation into the four suspects, and that the probe is confidential for the sake of protection of private life of the women whose computer systems were hacked.

According to media reports, Brkic was recently questioned for intercepting his former wife’s emails by using the services of Varga, a former Interior Ministry IT specialist accused in the fake texts case.

The media said Brkic’s brother Jozo was also accused in the interception case and that the police allegedly found out about it by examining the computers and documents seized in the case against Varga and Curic, former chauffeur of Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolusic and a close friend of Brkic.

The USKOK anti-corruption office suspects Varga and Curic in the fake texts case of obstructing the collection of evidence and of aiding and abetting in the commission of said crime.