One of the accused in the prosecutor murder case Iľja Weiss. (source: SME - Jozef Jakubčo)
The retrial of the Ján Kuciak murder case continued today with the court hearing how the young journalist and others were under surveillance by a special commando.
Miroslav Kriak and Štefan Mlynarčík appeared in court. Both men were part of a commando that followed Kuciak and a number of other journalists.
According to Kriak, all material gathered during surveillance was handed to former journalist-turned-spy Peter Tóth who had organised the tailing of the journalists for businessman Marian Kočner.
Kriak also reiterated what he and Mlynarčík both claimed during previous hearings - that they believed they were working for the state and that their assignment was linked to uncovering drug-related crimes.
He and Mlynarčík also confirmed that pictures police found in Kočner's possession and that were shown in court were those that they took or included in the surveillance report on Kuciak. Kriak also named eight journalists he was assigned to follow: Štefan Hríb, Eugen Korda, Monika Tódová, Ján Kuciak, Adam Valček, Marek Vagovič, and Dag Daniš.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, drug gang member Iľja Weiss, who is facing charges in a case of the planned murder of prosecutors which is also being heard along with the Kuciak murder case, testified in court for the first time.
He told the court how he procured a car for a crime in Piešťany for Serbian Darko Dragić who is also facing charges in the case of the planned murder of prosecutors, including Maroš Žilinka, who lives in the city.
Weiss said that he had not known what the car was intended for, only that it was supposed to be fast, without papers and it should not be a problem if something were to happen to it. According to Weiss, he was told it was connected to someone important and he thought Dragić wanted to shoot someone.
However, it amounted to nothing as Dragić paid Weiss only advance money for the car and nothing else.
The Serbian said that of all the accused he knew only Weiss and that he never saw any of the prosecutors that were to be murdered.
Another man facing charges, Dušan Kracina, denied everything Weiss said. Kracina earlier admitted he was monitoring the prosecutors. He is alleged to have turned to Dragić for the "job".
