FRANTIŠEK Blanárik will be the new head of the National Security Bureau (NBÚ) as of September 16. The Slovak parliament elected the candidate of the ruling Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) party with the support of 90 MPs in the 150-seat chamber in a secret ballot on September 7.
Blanárik replaces the current director, Aurel Ugor, who announced earlier this week that he would step down from his post effective September 15.
Blanárik currently serves as the military attaché at the Slovak Embassy in Ukraine. In the past, however, he was a member of the supervisory board of the arms trading company Petina International, while during the 1994-1998 Vladimír Mečiar government he was a the head of a commission that issued export licenses to arms traders.
