Trinh Xuan Thanh (source: AP/TASR)
The alleged Slovak involvement in the abduction of the Vietnamese businessman Trinh Xuan Thanh has grown into a major political scandal since Thursday, when Denník N published the account of the kidnapping, as described by Slovak police officers who say they were present in Bratislava when the Vietnamese businessman was boarding the government plane in 2017.
The then-interior minister Robert Kaliňák, who was forced to step down this March as a result of Slovakia’s political crisis and mass protests following the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, denies all the allegations and insists that Slovakia might only have been involved unwittingly by deception.
President Andrej Kiska and Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini will meet to discuss the case on Tuesday, August 8. For now, Pellegrini requested that Kaliňák’s successor in the ministerial chair, Denisa Saková, travel to Germany to discuss it with the German investigators.
The opposition, however, calls for criminal prosecution against Kaliňák and the organisers of the For a Decent Slovakia protests say they are ready to hit the streets again if the allegations about Kaliňák’s involvement turn out to be true.
