Minister: I Did Not Accuse The Party Over YouTube

Minister Kirin dismissed allegations that SDP had uploaded his statements on YouTube. Earlier, SDP asked for his resignation over this.

Today, Minister of the Interior Ivica Kirin denied that he said, as the media report, that he had discovered that the video recordings of his statements on the Internet portal YouTube had been sent by the Social Democratic Party (SDP).  

“I did not say that at all. That was said by one of the reporters who were standing in the place where we were having an informal conversation. And it has never occurred to me to use such things either. In fact, that is not even the job of the Minister or MUP (the Ministery of the Interior),” Kirin told the press in Virovitica, where the government is holding a session. 

SDP representatives asked for Kirin to be removed from office and held legally accountable for the aforementioned statement in Parliament today and they assessed that the statement was a direct threat addressed to SDP, that the Minister had abused his position to settle the score with his political opponents. 

SDP asked Kirin to explain based on whose decision and what law the police conducted the investigation of the author of the video recording.  

When asked to comment on SDP’s request, Kirin reiterated that he found all of this (related to YouTube) quite amusing until the moment people started telling him which team had been doing it and that the press also knew about it. 

“I heard the same thing as you did and I did not try to confirm that this or that side was doing it, but I just said that it was politically motivated because usually there are only politicians from some parties there, while others are not,” Kirin said, commenting on SDP’s move at the start of the election campaign. 

The Interior Minister also said said that, when a reporter tried to ask him if this could be discovered, he told him that he did not deal with such things nor he ever would. 

When asked if the Ministry of the Interior tried to look into who it was who was doing this nonetheless, Kirin replied that this did not even occur to him. “Why would I do that? There are no elements of any act that the police usually deals with. Some kind of affair is trying to be made out of this the whole time. If there is nothing else you can find [against] me, then at least out of the statements. I think all of this is part of the election campaign,” said Kirin.