Investigators involved in the Gorilla case, involving wiretapping by the SIS intelligence service of a flat where politicians met with prominent businessmen, still have not managed to secure enough evidence to press charges against any specific individual, reads the third report on the case, submitted by Special Prosecutor Dušan Kováčik on August 26. The parliamentary defence and security committee is slated to discuss the report on Tuesday, August 27, with parliament set to do so in September, the TASR newswire wrote.
In the document detailing the activities of the investigation team, Kováčik informs lawmakers that approximately 40 people were questioned as witnesses since the last report was submitted in early 2013, and analyses of suspects' bank accounts as well as transcripts of MPs' speeches on the Bratislava Airport privatisation were carried out, among other steps.
The special prosecutor informed, as quoted by TASR, that the prosecution in the case of suspicions of bribery worked with the National Property Fund (which manages state companies and state property, especially in the process of privatisation), to secure a large number of documents, which are now being processed and analysed.
The Gorilla scandal emerged in late 2011 with the release on the internet of transcripts from alleged secret-service wiretaps of senior politicians meeting with representatives of the Penta financial group at a safe house during Mikuláš Dzurinda's second government (2002-06). The transcripts pointed to rampant corruption in the upper echelons of Slovak politics. The scandal did the most harm to Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ), but current Prime Minister Robert Fico is alleged to have held business discussion in the flat.
The last report on the case was adopted by parliament in February, with 136 yes votes, and it stated that three prosecutions have been launched based on suspicions of bribery and blackmail. Members of the then parliament are suspected of having accepted bribes in exchange for approving the bills of the health minister, and members of government might have been extorted in connection with the privatisation of the Bratislava M.R. Štefánik Airport.
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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