Ivan Lexa, the former secret service boss charged last week with hiring an underworld hit-man to kill a police informant in 1996, is to be defended by a former MP of Vladimír Mečiar’s HZDS opposition party, Ján Cuper.
Cuper, a member of parliament for the HZDS until September 2002 elections, joins a four-member defence team after another Lexa lawyer, Juraj Trokan, was elected mayor of the town of Trenčianske Teplice and had to give up his practice.
A colorful former professor at the Comenius University law school, Cuper is known for his frequent and expressive comments in parliamentary debate.
Compiled by Tom Nicholson from press reports.
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