THE FAIR-Play Alliance (AFP) ethics watchdog has filed another motion with the General Prosecutor’s Office, claiming that it is ignoring information from Swiss authorities about the murky 2008 sale of free carbon dioxide emission quotas in which Slovakia lost more than €47 million. Moreover, the AFP will submit a criminal complaint to the National Criminal Agency, the TASR newswire reported on July 8.
Though the AFP submitted a motion claiming that a former high-level official from the Environment Ministry made money from the sale, earlier this year the prosecutor claimed that no such information was found in the file. The AFP is now asking the General Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the suspicions of the Swiss authorities properly.
“The Slovak prosecutor’s office behaves as if it wanted to protect the unknown high-level official of the ministry,” said Zuzana Wienk of the AFP, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “Even if it did not have the information in the file, it is incomprehensible why it did not ask for it from the Swiss prosecutor’s office.”
Back in April 2014, the AFP published the documents from the Swiss Prosecutor’s Office, which describe the dubious transfer of $3.8 billion to the bank account of an influential Environment Ministry employee back in August 2009. Swiss bank Credit Suisse considered the transaction to be suspicious and forwarded it to the Swiss authorities. The same person was linked to three other accounts.
The documents obtained by the AFP had the official’s name blacked out, and referred to him or her as “a secretary”.
Wienk said that the Swiss prosecutor’s office documented the identity of the person, as well as the bank accounts and transfers on the accounts. According to the official documents from Switzerland, they sent all important banking information to their Slovak counterparts on January 27, 2012.
“It is mind-bending that the general prosecutor is not interested in where such important documents disappeared,” Wien said, as quoted by SITA.
The AFP also called on the public to help put pressure on the General Prosecutor’s Office and demand results. It also turned to the MPs and the president, calling on them to demand an explanation from the prosecutor’s office.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
