ONLY a few days after the police stopped the investigation into alleged blackmail connected with the privatisation of the Bratislava airport, the prosecutor will halt another case referenced in the Gorilla file.
“Two other resolutions over stopping the criminal prosecution in connection with buying the votes of MPs during the vote on so-called Zajac’s health-care laws are being prepared,” Andrea Predajňová, the spokesperson for the special task department of the General Prosecutor’s Office, told the TA3 news channel.
The anonymously leaked Gorilla file, which emerged in late December 2011, is a lengthy document that purports to describe an operation conducted by the Slovak Information Service (SIS), the country’s main intelligence agency, in which it collected information about the influence of the Penta financial group on senior Slovak politicians between 2005 and 2006.
In addition to the Gorilla file, leaked dispatches of the US Embassy, which were published on WikiLeaks, contained references to allegations of buying deputies’ votes. According to the document, Penta allegedly persuaded some independent MPs to vote for Zajac’s reform. It allegedly offered them two million crowns (about €66,000) per each vote, TA3 reported.
On the other hand, Predajňová said that the investigator of the specialised team has issued two decisions over launching a criminal prosecution over indirect corruption. Yet, she has not specified to which case this prosecution pertains, according to TA3.
Earlier this month, Slovak police closed a Gorilla-related case pertaining to suspicions that former transport minister Pavol Prokopovič of the (now opposition) Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) faced unlawful political pressure during the privatisation of the M. R. Štefánik airport in Bratislava, in an attempt to guarantee that Penta would win the bid.
Head of the police team investigating the Gorilla case, Marek Gajdoš, told the Hospodárske Noviny daily that the incident did not happen. The National Criminal Agency launched an investigation into the privatisation of the airport at the beginning of 2013.
