MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Saturday, February 4, 2023 - 9 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Friday, February 3): ZILINA - More than twenty towns and villages in Zilina region have declared a state of emergency due to a heavy snowfall. According to Zilina district office representative Kamil Ruman, the calamity has affected mainly the districts of Namestovo, Tvrdosin, Dolny Kubin and Liptovsky Mikulas. BRATISLAVA - Special Prosecutor Daniel Lipsic posted on a social network on Friday that the house in which he lives had to be evacuated due to a bomb alert. "Incidents like this will influence neither me, nor my colleagues from the Special Prosecutor's Office in our work and efforts to make Slovakia a country in which nobody is above the law," stated Lipsic. At the same time, he called on everyone to leave his wife and children out of the attacks on him. Commenting on the situation, the special prosecutor stated that expressions of hate by some people facing charges, suspects, their lawyers and politicians know no bounds. BRATISLAVA - An anonymous caller reported the presence of a bomb in OLaNO leader Igor Matovic's home in Trnava on Friday. Weekly Plus 7 dni was the first to report on the story on its website, with OLaNO spokesman Peter Dojcan confirming the information to TASR. "We consider threatening to attack anyone's family and home to be an extremely disgusting and cowardly act. Igor Matovic will not be intimidated, however," said Dojcan, adding that the police are looking into the matter. PRAGUE - Czech president-elect Petr Pavel is planning to come to Slovakia in the very first week after his inauguration, TASR learnt on Friday. As Pavel told a TASR correspondent, he wants to keep his promise that Slovakia will be the first country that he will visit. "I won't waste any time," he said, adding that he'd like to invite Slovak President Zuzana Caputova to his inauguration. BRATISLAVA - Charges of corruption levelled against me are absurd, former interior minister Robert Kalinak (2012-18) stated at the Police Corps Presidium on Friday. According to Kalinak's defence attorney David Lindtner, Kalinak is in a difficult situation because he has to disprove something that didn't happen. He maintains that the accusations are based on a single sentence and single testimony from ex-head of the Financial Administration Frantisek I. [name abbreviated due to legal reasons]. "It's one of the most forced resolutions I've ever read," said Kalinak. "This resolution is similarly superficial, unlawful and arbitrary to the one we've seen already in the Twilight case. We thought that the rock bottom was reached already in the Twilight case, but here I must say that we're facing an absolute absence of common sense," said Lindtner. zel