THE SUPREME Court on February 26 confirmed a verdict handed down by the Special Court in the case of Samuel Lojkovič, the mayor of Veľký Meder village, who was charged with accepting a Sk300,000 bribe.
Lojkovič thereby automatically loses his mandate as mayor, and will serve 2.5 years in jail and pay a fine of Sk300,000, the Pravda daily wrote.
This is the first instance in Slovakia in which a court has handed down a final sentence on a mayor for bribery. Pavol Bielik, the mayor of the Bratislava suburb of Rača, was sentenced by the Special Court to five years on bribery charges on January 30, but appealed to the Supreme Court.
Lojkovič, who had been mayor of Veľký Meder since 1999, accepted the bribe from a local businessman. In return for the money, the mayor promised to ensure that the municipality would not cancel a rental contract on a building the municipality owned.
The businessman, Štefan Boros, turned to the police and acted as a police agent in the case. Police arrested Lojkovič on March 30, 2005 shortly after he took the money from Boros.
