‘First gay politician laundered money for the boss’: Miljak’s lawsuit against Jutarnji rejected, he did not sign

The Municipal Civil Court in Zagreb rejected the lawsuit of former president of the Croatian Pure Party of Rights (HČSP) Josip Miljak against Hanza Media as the publisher of Jutarnji List for violation of personality rights and mental anguish due to the publication of the text titled ‘First gay politician laundered money for the HČSP boss’ and the claim for the payment of 35,000 kuna increased by default interest.

Miljak filed a lawsuit in November 2013 regarding the disputed text against Europa Digital d.o.o., one of the former publishers of Jutarnji List before Hanza Media took over Europapress Holding (EPH), stating that ‘inaccurate, untrue and defamatory information’ had been published against him.

The court deemed this claim unfounded, stating that, according to legal provisions, the right to sue for damages, in accordance with general provisions of mandatory law, belongs to a person who has previously requested the publisher to publish a correction of the disputed information or an apology when a correction is not possible.

>>>Former boss and ‘UDBA’ secretary of HČSP confirmed penalties for money extraction

However, upon reviewing the request for the publication of a correction, the court found that it had been addressed to Europa Digital d.o.o., as well as to the editor-in-chief, but that the plaintiff Josip Miljak did not personally sign this request nor was his name printed at the signature place. Therefore, the court considered that Miljak had not proven that he was the one who requested the publisher to publish a correction of the disputed information and that consequently, he does not have procedural active legitimacy to file a lawsuit.

The lawsuit followed after a text in Jutarnji List in which it was stated that the former secretary of HČSP, Vinko Kalinić, ‘a poet from Vis and a declared gay’ as a defendant said that he ‘only received one percent commission as salary’ during his testimony in a criminal proceeding initiated by the State Attorney’s Office due to million-dollar malversations and tax evasion against Miljak and Kalinić.

>>>Court: Manolić’s claim that Karamarko collaborated with UDBA is not defamation

The text cited Kalinić’s words that Miljak, through him, ‘laundered’ millions of kuna earned from construction work in Zagreb on the Blato collectors and the University Hospital, and that he, as stated, gave him 2,000 kuna monthly for living in Zagreb for the job of secretary of HČSP.

The Supreme Court confirmed last July the convicting part of the first-instance verdict against Miljak and Kalinić, who were found guilty two years ago of extracting 3.5 million kuna from the company, and they will be tried again for not paying almost 700,000 kuna in VAT.

By the first-instance verdict from February 2016, after which he resigned from his party position, Miljak was sentenced to a partially suspended sentence of two years, which means he must spend ten months behind bars if he does not commit a criminal offense in the next five years. At the same time, he must return the illegal benefit of 3.5 million kuna to the state within three years, and if he fails to do so, he will also go to prison for two years.

>>>Karamarko: In Croatia, everything still smells of her – UDBA

Kalinić, on the other hand, was conditionally sentenced to a ten-month prison sentence, and he must return about 80,000 kuna that he withdrew from the company’s account to the state. Despite the million-dollar damage, this case would not be particularly interesting to the media if, after its ‘opening’ to the public almost five years ago, the leadership of HČSP had not publicly accused Kalinić of being a homosexual who was inserted into their party ranks by the notorious UDBA.

On the official party website in August 2013, a text titled ‘Leftist Attack on HČSP’ was published stating that Kalinić ‘publicly declared himself as a homosexual back in 2005 and was swiftly expelled from the party’, after which no one from the party contacted him. Furthermore, they stated that his father was an officer of the JNA, who fled to Belgrade in 1991, but also that he was already recruited in 1994 by a ‘famous UDBA agent’ ‘with whom he lived for a time in a same-sex community in his villa’ in Zagorje. They also stated that his ‘homo-UDBA connections’ helped him in his poetry career.