Zilinka: Purchase of Traffic Radar Cameras to Be Examined by Prosecution Service

Bratislava, 11 August (TASR) - The purchase of controversial traffic radar cameras by the Interior Ministry will be examined by the prosecution service, Prosecutor-General (PG) Maros Zilinka has announced on social media. "I've ordered the Bratislava region prosecutor to take measures to comprehensively examine all the circumstances related to the procurement of radar cameras by the Interior Ministry that may be relevant from a criminal-law perspective," said Zilinka. Interior Ministry spokesman Matej Neumann told TASR that the ministry respects the prosecution service's procedure and will provide it with full cooperation. The opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party warned last week that the Interior Ministry was probably installing Russian-made traffic cameras on Slovak roads. The party said that this posed a major security risk because the traffic monitoring system will have access to state databases. It also questioned the procurement process for the cameras. In addition to the National Security Bureau (NBU), the devices should also undergo an independent analysis by a foreign expert organisation from an EU- and NATO-member state, stated PS. The Interior Ministry and Soitron, the supplier of the radar cameras, denied at that time that the devices are of Russian origin. The Interior Ministry on Monday (10 August) called on Soitron to immediately remove two speed radar devices from a trial run. According to the documentation submitted so far, the origin of the devices and their key components hasn't been verified in a way that the ministry would consider sufficient to rule out security concerns, it said. ko/df