President Zoran Milanovic has said that it was not him who had initiated the Janaf scandal and that he only opened a debate on some illogical things surrounding the affair.

“It was not me who initiated the scandal. Some people have been arrested and placed in custody (in this case). I have opened a debate about some illogical things which I find to be incomprehensible,” the president said in an interview which the national broadcaster HTV aired on Wednesday evening.

He commented on the investigation leaks and alluded that either the police or the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) could have been the only ones to divulge the information about the case.

“It is either the police or USKOK. The police have no interest in doing that,” he insisted.

The JANAF case implicates the former director of this state-run oil pipeline operator, Dragan Kovacevic, two mayors and a few more suspects who are believed to have rigged public tenders abused office, and received kickbacks.

Milanovic also criticised Dalija Oreskovic, a lawyer-turned-politician, after it became evident that her law firm had worked for JANAF.

Oreskovic who is currently an opposition parliamentary deputy and one of the most vociferous critics of the developments surrounding the Janaf case, used to be the chairwoman of the country’s Conflict of Interest Commission.

The president raised the issue of what the former Conflict of Interest Commission chair had worked for JANAF as a lawyer which he highlighted “as the grossest example of the conflict of interest in the last 10 years.”

He elaborated that in her capacity as a lawyer she had concluded the business deal with the state-run company as soon as she ceased to be at the helm of the Commission and that such types of business deals were the most sought-after among law firms.

As for the visits to the informal club of Dragan Kovacevic, Milanovic said that the armed forces chief of staff, Robert Hranj had arrived in that club after he had told him to come to that club which he described as “an absolutely irrelevant place.”