General Prosecutor Jaromír Čižnár at a press conference, July 16. (source: SITA)
General Prosecutor Jaromír Čižnár refutes the claims that the Interior Minister Denisa Saková (Smer) is intervening in the investigation concerning the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, by assigning and dividing it to several investigators.
The investigators will soon have to ask to prolong the custody of the four people accused in the case of Kuciak's murder, since the initial period of a seven-month detention is coming to an end, Čižnár told the press.
"Once the court finds that there are delays in the proceedings, it is a reason to release them from custody," he said, as quoted by the Sme daily. "Therefore, we have decided to relieve the original investigation team."
He went on to say that they will not manage to file a prosecution order of the detained people by the end of February as initially planned. Currently, Alena Zsuzsová is charged with ordering the murder of Kuciak, but she does not have to be the last one, the Denník N daily reported.
Investigations may join later
The original prosecutors will go on overseeing the investigation and the investigators will mutually exchange information, Čižnár added, as reported by Sme.
Based on Saková's decision, the original team will investigate Kuciak's murder.
The new team, comprised of the members of the Interior Ministry's inspectorate, will investigate two cases: first, the planned murder of Deputy General Prosecutor Peter Šufliarsky, and the planned murders of prosecutor Maroš Žilinka and lawyer Daniel Lipšic.
Saková made a decision after it had turned out that at least one of the three people who were to be murdered had been screened in the police's databases by someone from the police corps.
"In the case of Mr Žilinka, the information was ominously detailed, and they could not access it without having good contacts," said Čižnár, as quoted by Sme.
The three investigations will probably be put together and returned to the original team, the general prosecutor added, as reported by Sme.
