January 14, 2020

Slovakia’s murdered journalist case continues

topic:	Democracy
located:	Slovakia
editor:	Magdalena Rojo

On a cold February day in 2018, a Slovak investigative journalist, Ján Kuciak, and his fiancée, an archaeologist, Martina Kušnírová, were shot dead in their house. Slovakia was shocked. Yet, more shocking information was to come during the investigation of their murder.

Charges were raised at the preliminary hearing last December and the main public hearing at the Supreme Court started yesterday.

Right after the murder, the Slovak police expressed suspicion that Kuciak and his fiancée were killed because of his investigative work. Almost two years later, Marián Kočner, a Slovak businessman, is being accused of ordering the journalist's murder. Kuciak was investigating Kočner's businesses, which led to Kočner threatening the journalist shortly before he was murdered.

Other people accused in the case are Kočner's friend - Alena Zsuzsová, Zoltán Andruskó, Tomáš Szabó, and Miroslav Marček. Zsuzsová carried out the hire of Andruskó to kill Kuciak for 50,000 Euros. Andruskó ended up being a middleman and hired former soldier, Marček, and former policeman, Szabó. All of the accused face sentences of 25 years to life in prison. 

As Andruskó collaborated with the police from the beginning of the investigation and because he was the first witness to name Kočner as the mastermind of the murder, he was sentenced to 15 years in December of last year. Marček pled guilty during the first public hearing this Monday. He coldly described how he shot Kuciak in his chest twice and Kušnírová in her head, unexpectedly, as he did not know she was also home.

The murder was the catalyst for the largest protests across the country since the Velvet revolution in 1989. Furthermore, the investigation disclosed the links between local mafia groups, politicians, mostly from the ruling party of SMER Social Democracy, as well as police, state officials, including prosecutors and judges.

Many believe that the investigation would not have come this far if it was not for other investigative journalists continuing Kuciak’s work. The journalists, often in cooperation, continued disclosing the extent of corruption in Slovakia, despite the fact that many of them found out during the investigation that they were also followed by Kočner's people.

The Slovak people, stunned by the hard hit to their democracy, got a glimpse into the inner workings of their government. Within the last two years, Robert Fico, a former PM and the leader of SMER, and a few other politicians, judges, including the former president of police, stepped down from their positions due to pressure from the public protests and the disclosures by the media.

Zuzana Čaputová, the newly appointed and first female president, can also be considered a natural response to the revealed realities in Slovakia. New political parties have also emerged from this political crisis, calling for change. Yet, support for far right-wing parties is also on the rise.

The hearing in the Kuciak murder case will continue through the upcoming days. The resolution along with the results of the elections on the last day of February will show if Slovakia still has a chance to be a democratic country with a working justice system.

Image: Video grab from YouTube