ZAGREB, 5 January, 2022 - The USKOK anti-corruption office on Tuesday dismissed allegations by the National weekly that prosecutor Krešimir Ostrogonac had stopped the interrogation of Mirela Alerić Puklin, an indicted former prosecutor in the Agrokor case, after she said that she knew how USKOK had ended the Borg affair.
In its denial USKOK claims that Ostrogonac, a deputy to the USKOK director, conducted Alerić Puklin's questioning in line with the Criminal Procedure Act and the presentation of defence which the former prosecutor, who in November 2021 was suspected of leaking information from investigations related to Agrokor, chose herself in the presence of her attorney, refusing to answer the prosecutor's questions.
USKOK says that it can be concluded from the Nacional article that its author was privy to the content of the suspect's defence or a part of it and that the interpretation of the course of the questioning as described in the article is ill-intentioned. The prosecution recalls that under the Criminal Procedure Act, investigations are not public and that it cannot reveal the content of the indictee's defence.
Regarding the so-called Borg affair, USKOK says that allegations from the Nacional article about USKOK having discarded criminal reports in the case promptly due to political pressure are incorrect.
"Extensive preliminary investigations were conducted regarding a number of criminal reports filed in connection with the case, and decisions to dismiss those reports were made exclusively in line with the law and the results of the investigations, without anyone's influence or pressure," USKOK says in its statement.
Nacional reports that it has seen a part of the testimony of Alerić Puklin, a former prosecutor in the Agrokor case who was arrested recently, which shows that she wants to talk about the covering up of the Borg affair and details regarding the dismissal of a criminal report filed by former Agrokor concern owner Ivica Todorić against former Deputy PM Martina Dalić and other persons involved in that case.
Nacional adds that the case goes as high as Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, "because the secret group of lawyers who worked on Lex Agrokor and who later profited as advisors to Agrokor's emergency management, was formed on his order."
Former Zagreb County Deputy Prosecutor Mirela Alerić Puklin had worked on the Agrokor case and resigned after police found around HRK 4 million on her husband Goran Alerić in an investigation in the JANAF case, which is money believed to belong to former JANAF CEO Dragan Kovačević.
Alerić Puklin and her husband were arrested in November 2021 together with a former Agrokor Management Board member and indictee in the Agrokor case, Piruška Canjuga, to whom, as USKOK and police suspect, the couple leaked information regarding the state of that case.
Alerić Puklin is suspected of having given instructions, through her husband, who was an acquaintance of the Canjuga family, to Piruška Canjuga about the way she should proceed with her defence and the actions she should take in order to avoid criminal liability.
