Fico Rejects Link Between Party Briefing on Sunday and Police Operation

Bratislava, 4 March (TASR) - Sunday's (1 March) press conference by Smer-SD party leaders was completely unrelated to the police inspectorate's 'Operation Cooperating Defendant' on Tuesday (3 March), Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) stated on Wednesday. Fico again criticised the approach of the law-enforcement authorities to cooperating witnesses in the period 2020 to 2023, when Smer-SD nominees faced criminal prosecutions over corruption-related charges. "We want to strictly separate what was said on Sunday morning about one of the most well-known Slovak cooperating defendants, Mr. Mako, and prosecutor of the Prosecutor-General's Office (PG) Michal Surek, from what you are so widely describing in the media today," emphasised Fico. Fico said that he can imagine the pressure faced by the Prosecutor-General's Office following the detention of one of its prosecutors on Tuesday. "We hope that there will be no excesses and that the steps taken by the PG's office in this regard will be professional and not prompted by pressure," he underlined. According to Parliamentary Vice-chair Tibor Gaspar (Smer-SD), witness testimonies of so-called cooperating defendants were allegedly forced in the past. "Not only to make them confess to their own criminal activities, but also to testify against people identified by the law-enforcement authorities, to testify against Robert Fico and Robert Kalinak, because these people were an obstacle in the political contest," he said. Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer-SD) spoke of a "gigantic effort to destroy the rule of law". The Internal Affairs Inspectorate (UIS) carried out Operation Cooperating Defendant on Tuesday. During the operation, four current and two former police officers and one prosecutor were detained and charged with extortion and the misuse of power by a public official, allegedly committed in an organised manner. In addition to those charged, two suspects were also detained. The operation took place in the regions of Bratislava, Nitra and Banska Bystrica. Several opposition representatives have criticised the police operation. They pointed out that Tuesday's detention of police officers came just two days after the press conference by the leadership of Smer-SD and the prime minister's adviser Marek Para, at which they criticised the work of law-enforcement authorities in 2020 to 2023. They therefore see the detention and charging of the police officers as a political order and an act of revenge, as the detained officers had been investigating the Purgatory case, in which Parliamentary Vice-chair Tibor Gaspar is a defendant. Meanwhile, UIS has also rejected any connection with political statements. mf/df