Police have filed a criminal report against a 50-year-old Italian national on the suspicion that he designed the website "Croatian traitors" where the names of PM Andrej Plenkovic, President Zoran Milanovic and members of the national COVID-19 response team were published, along with their personal data.

Police in the Virovitica-Podravina County said the investigation in the case was launched in December 2021, when the website emerged.

The suspect is an Italian national staying temporarily in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.

He has been interviewed and his electronic equipment has been confiscated, the police said.

The website was designed at the time of the coronavirus pandemic as a database where visitors could enter the names and data of people whom they believed should be lynched. The contributors were invited via social networks also to enter the addresses of the “traitors” and the identities of their family members.

Apart from Plenkovic and Milanovic, also listed on the website were members of the COVID-19 response team Health Minister Vili Beros, the head of Zagreb’s Infectious Diseases Hospital, Alemka Markotic, Croatian Public Health Institute head Krunoslav Capak, and Minister of the Interior and team’s head Davor Bozinovic, whom the authors of the website and visitors accused of health dictatorship and fearmongering.

Also published on the website were personal data of Labour Minister Josip Aladrovic, renowned scientist Ivan Djikic, pulmonologist Sasa Srica, and Dr Dobrica Roncevic, who the authors of the website said “wants to vaccinate as many adults and children as possible.”