Richard Sulík (source: SITA)
ANOTHER anonymous document has emerged on the internet, this time featuring alleged transcripts of short text messages exchanged between Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) chairman Richard Sulík and businessman Marian Kočner under the title Sasanka, meaning Anemone in English. The alleged document appeared on the same web server as the Gorilla file, containing alleged wiretap transcripts showing high-level political corruption in 2005-6. Sulík confirmed on January 27 that he used to meet Kočner but said he does not remember the exact wording of the short messages they exchanged.
“I meet a lot of people,” Sulík said as quoted by TASR newswire. “I've known Mr. Kočner for many years”.
Sulík also said that he has not seen Kočner for more than a year adding that he notified Prime Minister Iveta Radičová of their meetings.
The alleged short messages appearing in the Sasanka file suggest that Sulík kept Kočner informed about developments relating to the difficult election of a General Prosecutor in 2010, when in a secret ballot several ruling coalition deputies voted in favor of the incumbent Dobroslav Trnka. Radičová had threatened to resign if Trnka was elected.
Sulík said that the aim of his meetings was to gain information from the businessman, who according to TASR, led a siege of the TV Markíza building in 1998 that led to wholesale management changes at the station while Sme also reported that Kočner appeared in the so-called ‘mafia files’, a list of persons of police interest. According to Sulík, the value of the information went down as time went by, so he stopped seeing Kočner.
The 'Sasanka' transcript supposedly dates back to September-December 2010 and there is an attached conclusion to the file which suggests that it could have been SaS deputies who voted for Trnka, who gained the support of 74 MPs in December 2010, one vote short of being re-elected General Prosecutor, TASR wrote.
SaS has denied the conclusions of the document. "SaS has always backed the prime minister even in situations when her own party [SDKU] did not," Sulík stated.
The ruling coalition partners have been rather careful about commenting on the alleged communications.
The chair of the parliament’s constitutional committee, Radoslav Procházka, from the Christian Democratic Movememt (KDH), speaking on a talk show on Slovak Radio said that he feels betrayed after learning that Sasanka may indicate that the SaS chairman and businessman Kočner discussed the election of the general prosecutor, TASR reported.
"I openly and trustingly spoke to Mr. Sulik about how to choose the best candidate," said Procházka.
According to Procházka, if 'Sasanka' proves to be authentic, it will mean that a man who has been acting like Joan of Arc for two years did in fact have completely different interests, TASR wrote.
