Maroš Žilinka (source: TASR)
Last year, prosecutor Maroš Žilinka learnt that Alena Zsuzsová, who became known to Slovakia as a decoy of Marian Kočner, was preparing his murder.
Prepayment of volume €20,000 of the sum was already paid and the murder was planned to autumn 2017, a few months before journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée were murdered. Their plans were halted at the very last moment, according to the testimony of Zoltán Andruskó, the man who confessed to have acted as the middleman in the Kuciak murder, for which he is now serving a 15-year prison sentence.
The order was not only for prosecutor Žilinka, but also his wife and two children, with an alleged bonus of €10,000 for each of them.
“I am reconciled to the fact that I have a profession in which a person may face danger,” Žilinka told the Czech weekly Respekt in August 2019. “And what's a better report for me as a prosecutor is someone cannot buy me with money and the only way to stop me from doing my job is eliminate me.”
The MPs have now decided that Žilinka should indeed serve as the top prosecutor at a time the prosecution service, the judiciary and the police force are undergoing what has been described as purging itself from corruption and ties to criminal elements.
Žilinka was elected general prosecutor on December 3 in a public vote. 132 MPs voted for him, eight against and seven abstaining. He will serve a seven-year term if he is appointed by President Zuzana Čaputová.
