PS Calls on Sutaj Estok to Release All Information about Traffic Cameras

Bratislava, 12 August (TASR) - The opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party has called on Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) to release all information at his disposal about traffic radar cameras, adding that if he fails to do so, PS representatives will publish it themselves. According to PS, the cameras don't merely contain Russian components but are Russian-made and capable of much more than measuring speed. Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, PS security adviser Peter Bator and MP Jaroslav Spisiak (PS) called on minister Sutaj Estok to resign. "You also know very well, minister, and this is part of the information at your disposal, that these cameras aren't just ordinary cameras," said Bator. Asked by journalists what he meant by that, he said that he would leave it to the interior minister to explain. If the minister fails to do so, PS will provide an explanation within several days. Bator also noted that the cameras were operating and recording people even during their trail run. If they were to be tested as part of a system for detecting road traffic violations, they had to be connected to it. "For the system to be tested, it had to have data; for example, to identify some vehicles. That means that these didn't have to be live databases, but databases copied into the system, and the cameras had access," he warned, adding that the minister is trying to evade responsibility. Bator also criticised Slovakia's intelligence services, which, he said, should have prevented the cameras from being deployed, but failed to do so. He said that none of them appeared concerned that a person who had worked in Moscow for 15 years had brought in Russian cameras, but he didn't specify to whom he was referring. "In the end, it's the National Security Authority (NBU) that takes a screwdriver, dismantles it and discovers that we have a problem, which the interior minister then presents as a new finding. So, where are the services? Where is military intelligence, and, above all, where is the Slovak Information Service?" asked Bator. He pointed out that it took NBU two days to identify the origin of the cameras. In his view, the Interior Ministry should have done so much earlier. Spisiak said that the party had originally planned to file a criminal complaint, but Prosecutor-General Maros Zilinka had since ordered an investigation into the entire case. "Day by day, more and more suspicions are emerging, so we'll proceed as should be the case in an objective criminal investigation. We'll contact the prosecutor-general and provide the information we have," he said. Spisiak also pointed out that everyone, including the interior minister, has a duty to inform the law-enforcement authorities of any information they have concerning the case. Bator didn't rule out filing a criminal complaint. mf/df