Police Reject Complaint Regarding Matus Sutaj Estok's F1 Trip to Abu Dhabi (2)

Bratislava, 28 July (TASR) - A police investigator on 15 July rejected a criminal complaint against Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) over his trip to the Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi in 2024, Bratislava Region Prosecutor's Office spokesperson Gabriela Kovacova confirmed for TASR on Tuesday. The case was first reported by Aktuality.sk. "In the criminal matter in question, an investigator of the Office for the Fight Against Organised Crime (UBOK) decided on 15 July 2026 under Section 197(1)(d) of the Criminal Procedure Code to reject a suspicion of, first, the offence of accepting and providing an undue advantage under Section 336c(1) of the Criminal Code and, secondly, the offence of accepting and providing an undue advantage under Section 336d(1) of the Criminal Code," said Kovacova. The prosecutor will review the legality of the decision, with the complainant entitled to file a complaint in this case, she noted. The Police Corps Presidium has confirmed for TASR that the UBOK investigator has rejected the criminal complaint filed in December 2024 over suspicions of the offence of accepting and providing an undue advantage. "The investigator reached this decision because the investigation carried out didn't establish any facts justifying the launch of criminal proceedings," stated the presidium's press department department. The Let's Stop Corruption Foundation highlighted inconsistencies in the explanation for Sutaj Estok's trip to Abu Dhabi. The minister and his partner were there from 7 to 9 December 2024. According to the foundation, a receipt supposed to confirm that his partner had paid for the flight tickets in cash was issued only on 13 December, when the minister and his partner were already back in Slovakia and media reports about the trip had emerged. "The case file shows that the investigator either failed to notice this fact or deliberately ignored it and didn't confront the minister or his partner with it," said Lubomir Danko, a lawyer for the Let's Stop Corruption Foundation. According to him, the investigator also failed to examine sufficiently other circumstances surrounding payment for the hotel and flights. The Let's Stop Corruption Foundation will therefore file a complaint against the rejection of the criminal report, which it submitted early last year. The foundation is also requesting that the case file should be taken away from the aforementioned investigator and assigned to a new one. It claims that the investigator has already made a decision for the third time without properly verifying whether an undue advantage was provided. For this reason, a prosecutor has returned the case to him twice. The criminal complaint against Sutaj Estok was filed by Juraj Seliga, a member of the non-parliamentary Democrats party. It was also submitted to the Prosecutor-General's Office by the Let's Stop Corruption Foundation. Based on its analysis of information and documents related to the trip, the NGO said that an offence involving accepting an undue advantage may have occurred. According to the foundation, the entire stay may have cost more than €30,000. The interior minister previously said he paid for the Abu Dhabi trip himself, despite the fact that it also allegedly included official talks on cooperation. The head of the ministry travelled there after being invited by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. NOTE: This story has been extended to include paragraphs 5-8 mf/df