Prosecutor Proposes Unconditional Prison Sentence for Peter K.

Pezinok, 23 May (TASR) - A prosecutor at the Specialised Criminal Court (STS) in Pezinok (Bratislava region) has proposed an unconditional prison sentence for governor of the Slovak central bank (NBS), Peter K. charged with bribery, suggesting a term in the mid-range of the one to five-year sentencing scale, along with a minimum five-year ban on holding office and the confiscation of €48,000. According to the prosecution, Peter K., when he was finance minister, asked former head of Financial Administration Frantisek Imrecze to make sure the VAT refunds worth a total of €3 million were paid to several selected firms in advance, giving Imcrecze a bribe of €48,000 in exchange for this. Peter K. insists on his innocence, claiming that he's never given a bribe to anyone and views the prosecution as unlawful. This is the second charge of bribery that the NBS governor has faced, with the first charges pressed in the autumn of 2022 and cancelled by the Prosecutor-General's Office. In April 2023, a Specialised Criminal Court judge found Peter K. guilty of bribery and fined him €100,000. As both the prosecutor and the defendant appealed against the verdict, the case has proceeded to the current trial. lin/df