ZAGREB, 26 January, 2021 - An attorney for HDZ MP Žarko Tušek said on Tuesday that he could file a criminal report against Viktor Šimunić, an independent councillor from Oroslavje, and against a journalist, for unlawfully recording and publishing Šimunić's conversation with Tušek.
Šimunić said earlier in the day that the recording, in which Tušek, who heads the HDZ branch in Krapina-Zagorje County, was offering him covert support in the campaign for local elections and employment in public institutions in exchange for supporting the HDZ after the elections, had been made and published in the interest of the public.
Tušek said that the recording, published first on the website of the 24 Sata daily, was authentic and that it was an attempt to discredit him.
Tušek's attorney Vladimir Terešak said that the unauthorised recording of a conversation and its publication contained "significant elements of a criminal offence" by the councillor who recorded the conversation and the reporter who made the recording public.
The attorney said the offence in question carried a penalty of up to three years in prison, noting that he would advise his client to report the unauthorised recording of his conversation to the prosecutorial authorities but that a final decision on the matter would be made in the next few days.
Responding to a reporter's remark that the unauthorised recording of a conversation was not a criminal offence if done in public interest, which is above private interest, Terešak told the N1 broadcaster that that was for the court to decide.
He believes that the recorded conversation did not contain any elements of influence-peddling and that an erroneous parallel was drawn between Tušek's case and the case of former Vukovar mayor Željko Sabo of the Social Democratic Party who was sentenced for bribe giving, the evidence proving it being a recording of his phone conversation.
"Tušek is not a government official, he is an MP, and this is a 'what if' case. Neither is the HDZ in power in Krapina-Zagorje County nor is Tušek in a position to make appointments as a member of parliament," said Terešak.
Sabo was a member of local government in Vukovar who was sentenced after elections for trying to buy off councillors while Tušek's case is about classic negotiations, said the attorney.
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