Former chief prosecutor convicted of corruption is free, thanks to justice minister

Dušan Kováčik, the former special prosecutor who served from 2004, was released from prison on Wednesday afternoon—at least for now.

Kováčik was convicted in 2021 of accepting a €50,000 bribe and leaking information from investigation files, resulting in a 14-year prison sentence. In 2022, the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to eight years. He was also ordered to pay €100,000, a sum he has yet to pay, writes the Sme daily.

“I want to thank all the members of the prison guard,” Kováčik said upon his release from the prison in Dubnica nad Váhom, in western Slovakia.

Thanks to the current justice minister, Boris Susko of the Smer party, who filed an extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Court on August 7, Kováčik is now free and could theoretically travel abroad. An incentive came from Kováčik’s lawyer, Erik Magál, who had filed a similar motion months ago. The court could not act on it earlier as the Justice Ministry had requested the case file.

“This is a standard institute of our legal system,” Minister Susko said of the extraordinary appeal in a four-minute video on Facebook.

Kováčik released without restrictions