President Zoran Milanovic on Saturday called out Ivan Turudic, candidate for the State Attorney General, for meeting with football mogul Zdravko Mamic while he was the president of the Zagreb County Court, first when Mamic was a suspect and later when he was under investigation.

“These meetings were held under very strange circumstances. I’m not talking about a christening, a baptismal event, a bar mitzvah… they were marked by the kind of secrecy from which even the Communist International (Comintern) could learn… However, at the time Mamic was still not under investigation. For that entire year (2015), Turudic was the president of the County Court. At the end of August, the gentlemen again have a secret meeting under the cover of night, driving for hours and hiding in secret places. At the time Mamic was no longer a suspect, he was under investigation…” Milanovic told a news conference.

Asked if there was there was anything specific in the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) documents as to what Turudic and Mamic had talked about, Milanovic said that there was not “because it was not recorded, but it is clear to everyone that this type of contact is not permissible”.

“What could have they talked about at a time when one was under investigation and the other was the president of the court?” Milanovic asked ironically, adding that anyone who wants to retain even a shred of credibility must think about it.

He said that such information was recorded and that at the time the Office of the State Attorney-General (DORH) was notified as well, “and they must have been in a dilemma as to what to do.”

“That information is still there. That institution should now be led by a man who will go through all the files on his first day at work. Is that normal? Is that European Croatia? Why is Plenkovic is such a hurry, as four years ago, to appoint the State Attorney-General just before the elections?” Milanovic asked.

During a visit to Dubrovnik on Friday, Milanovic said that Turudic must not be appointed State Attorney-General as there are serious security barriers to his appointment.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said after that that the government’s position on the matter will not change “as there is no new information” on Turudic.

To Plenkovic, who in a comment on Milanovic’s criticism of Turudic yesterday said that “something irks Milanovic”, Milanovic replied, “Nothing irks me.” “But something does hurt me a lot, I can’t watch an obscure character being made into the State Attorney-General. I have to stand in the way of that, as much as I can with what is available to me, and that is what I’m doing.”

Milanovic added that Plenkovic yesterday mentioned Mamic and Turudic in the same context on his own, adding that since Plenkovic “outed” himself, he would continue in the same vein.

“By writing to him a letter of a confidential nature, in which I did not provide any information of my own but documents by SOA that have been kept there for eight years, I expected that he would phone me, but he phoned Turudic to ask him if he was guilty,” Milanovic said.

He went on to say that the prime minister was being inconsistent and was lying when he said that he obtained the said information from Milanovic, because he obtained it a day earlier from SOA, after Milanovic told SOA what specifically he was looking for.

“That’s the curse of Plenkovic and his buffoons, I was Prime Minister back then. In the period when I was not in a public office, all kinds of things happened and huge efforts were being made to make Turudic get promoted. A court was established for his sake,” Milanovic said, a reference to Turudic’s appointment as the first president of the High Criminal Court.

Turudic – greedy upstart

Milanovic went on to say that he considered Turudic and persons like him “greedy upstarts who perform hugely important jobs in an entirely unacceptable way.”

He said that he had seen in media attempts to portray the meetings between Mamic and Turudic as having been inconsequential.

“Like, we believe Turudic that he did not exert influence. Like, they met twice for two minutes. As if it’s important whether they met for two minutes or an hour and a half. What is important is when and under which circumstances they met,” said Milanovic.

He explained that in 2015, when he was Prime Minister, he did not do anything about this information because if he had, he would have violated his powers.

Milanovic said that that was not his job, but that of DORH, which at the time was dealing with late Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic and Mamic.

“And you are asking me if I exerted pressure on then State Attorney-General Dinko Cvitan? I did not. I never exerted pressure on anyone,” he said, adding that he had expected state institutions to do their job and noting that he had “almost no contact” with Cvitan.

“Now I am President, and my powers are even smaller. But this power I have,” he said.

The president also warned that in three weeks’ time the term of the Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff, who is appointed by him as the Commander-in-Chief, would expire but that nobody was contacting him in that regard, adding ironically, “That’s irrelevant”.