General Prosecutor's Office moves to drop charges against Ďurkovský

The General Prosecutor's Office has decided to drop charges against former Bratislava mayor and former Christian Democratic Movement-KDH MP Andrej Ďurkovský over an issue involving alleged mismanagement of public property, the TASR newswire learnt from the authority's press employee Andrea Predajňová on Monday, August 26.

The General Prosecutor's Office has decided to drop charges against former Bratislava mayor and former Christian Democratic Movement-KDH MP Andrej Ďurkovský over an issue involving alleged mismanagement of public property, the TASR newswire learnt from the authority's press employee Andrea Predajňová on Monday, August 26.

The Office in the end agreed with Ďurkovský's complaint concerning the police charges and lifted a police decision whereby he was charged with violating his duties in managing public property. The case involved the demolition of PKO culture centre on the left bank of the Danube River in Bratislava.

"The General Prosecutor's Office reacted to procedural shortcomings made by a lower-ranking prosecutor's office and the Police Corps," said Predajňová, adding that the decision was made on August 13 and that the GPO has instructed the investigator concerned at the Office for Fight against Corruption to deal with the issue anew.

According to Ďurkovský's attorney Juraj Kuráň, the latest decision makes it clear that the former mayor broke no law, and hence there were no grounds for bringing charges against him [for acting without due authority].

A project called Riverside City, funded by Henbury Development, was supposed to replace the PKO complex. The project was met with an immediate outcry from activists and politicians. Ďurkovský's lawyer has previously stated that Bratislava I District Court had also decided that the PKO could have been demolished, which would have taken the former mayor off the hook for giving the go-ahead. The GPO rejected the plea, however.

The police launched its prosecution against Ďurkovský over the matter in early 2011, while he was serving as a KDH MP. The Office for the Fight against Corruption twice asked the GPO to submit a request to parliament aimed at stripping him of his parliamentary immunity. The first proposal was returned to the police due to an alleged lack of evidence, while the second proposal was returned to the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Bratislava after Ďurkovský requested that the prosecution be dropped. Meanwhile, Ďurkovský left KDH and sat through most of the past 22-month parliament as an Independent. He has been out of parliament since the early general election in March, in which he did not run, and has therefore lost his parliamentary immunity. Charges against Durkovsky were pressed in April 2012.

(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.

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