Organized Crime and Coruption Project

Former Croatian Prime Minister and leader of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Jadranka Kosor could be added to a corruption investigation against her predecessor Ivo Sanader and their party.

Allegations that Kosor knew that some of the money kept in her party’s safe came from a slush fund consisting of embezzled money are destabilizing HDZ, Croatia’s second most powerful party.  HDZ had a majority in Croatia from 1990 until 2000 and from 2003 until elections in late 2011.

The claims surfaced after Croatia’s former insurance chief Damir Mihanovic told reporters that he had emails proving that Kosor was aware of the money’s provenance.  Emails that Kosor released in a recent news conference had been altered, he said.  He also accused Kosor of threatening him through intermediaries.

If the emails are produced, it could form a key portion of an indictment against Kosor, Croatia’s first female PM, and add to the several hundred page dossier against HDZ.

Kosor denies the allegations.  In a statement to Croatia’s anti-corruption body USKOK, she said that her party’s secretary Branko Bacic was responsible for operational management.

“I reject all the insinuations,” she said at a news conference Tuesday. “I am proud of everything I did to strengthen the political climate against criminals,” she said, adding that she never threatened anyone.

But Mihanovic says that Kosor, who was at the time the president of the party, knew that money which came from Customs head Mladen Barisic in January 2010 and wasgiven to HDZ cashier Marici Glavas, came from slush fund consisting of money embezzled from government institutions and public companies.  Mihanovic said despite this knowledge, Kosor kept it in a vault until October of that year.

Kosor’s predecessor as Prime Minister Ivo Sanader is on trial for allegedly accepting bribes from Austrian Hypo Bank and is under investigation on several other charges.

USKOK began investigating HDZ on charges that it embezzled from public firms and institutions, including creating fake jobs with Fimi Media, a public relations firm, in mid 2010.  A second investigation into Fimi Media recently opened focuses on how Kosor’s presidential campaign was financed in 2011.

Barisic was arrested on September 29, 2010, on suspicion that he was involved in the Fimi Media case, and relieved of his duties as Customs Chief at that time.

Cracking down on corruption is considered Croatia’s most fundamental obligation before it joins the European Union in 2013 according to the pre-accession agreement.