David Lindtner. (source: SME - Marko Erd)
As a judge, he used to meet with the now imprisoned oligarch Marian Kočner at a parking space. As a lawyer, he is one of the three partners in a law firm owned by the Smer party’s ex-interior minister Robert Kaliňák.
While Kaliňák is currently managing Smer’s election campaign, former president of the Bratislava III District Court, David Lindtner, will stand trial for indirect corruption and interference in the independence of courts. It is likely that the trial will take place in the autumn.
If found guilty, say, on just the second count, the ex-judge could spend up to eight years in prison.
Lindtner, who is mentioned in the high-profile Búrka (Storm) and Víchrica (Gale) cases, which concern corruption in the judicial system, reportedly tried to influence court proceedings in two cases that date back to 2017 and 2018. His former colleagues, Vladimír Sklenka, who resigned as judge in 2019 after it surfaced that he had allegedly received money and exchanged thousands of messages with Kočner, and Miriam Repáková, an ex-judge who was found guilty of bending the law in favour of Kočner in 2023, told the police about Lindtner’s alleged corrupt conduct.
Lindtner has refuted any guilt. Instead, he claims that all the charges against him are a political or inquisition trial that aims to criminalise selected people.
