Interior Minister and Hlas party leader Matúš Šutaj Eštok. (source: TASR - Jakub Kotian)
Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok of the Hlas party is said to be restraining the investigation of corruption by reducing the staff working on the most serious economic and organised crimes after the presidential election.
Zastavme Korupciu, an anti-corruption foundation, reports that the reorganisation within the National Crime Agency (NAKA), a police branch, was discussed at a meeting of a police union in mid-March. The entire process should be launched in May, one month after the second round of presidential elections.
Speaker of Parliament Peter Pellegrini, who is the leader of the coalition party Hlas, is running for president. He promises in his campaign that Slovakia will remain a safe country. The leader of the party finished second with 37.02 percent in the initial round.
The Fico government, which includes Hlas and the SNS parties, abolished the Special Prosecutor’s Office last week. The body oversaw the investigation of serious crimes, including corruption cases linked to the coalition parties. At the end of last year, the interior minister sacked then-police chief, Štefan Hamran, as well as his close colleague and National Crime Agency chief, Ľubomír Daňko. Under their management, the police began to investigate high-level corruption.
Daňko works with Zastavme Korupciu today.
“Skull hunters”
According to the foundation, the number of NAKA police officers should be reduced from 600 to 250. The changes should also affect the National Central Office For Special Types of Crime (NCODK). The office investigates cybercrimes and environmental crimes. “Skull hunters”, who search for the most wanted criminals, often hiding abroad, also work at the NCODK, the foundation points out.
Last year, drug dealer and one of the most wanted Slovaks, Michal Píš, was arrested in the Colombian city of Cartagena.
Moreover, three former members of the security forces are currently hiding in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ján Kaľavský, Marián Kučerka and Peter Gašparovič. They were all charged with corruption. In the case of Kaľavský and Gašparovič, verdicts are not yet final.
PM Robert Fico (Smer) appears to be on good terms with Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik.
What NAKA does
The interior minister announced his ambition of further reshuffles at NAKA in a January interview with the conservative misinformation daily Štandard.
Today, NAKA has four branches headquartered in Bratislava, Nitra, Banská Bystrica and Košice. Except for Bratislava, each of these branches has 11 departments that cover investigations, analytics, undercover operations, and financial crime investigations. Bratislava has 12 departments.
Apart from organised crime, economic and tax crimes, extremism and terrorism, they also investigate corruption and crimes concerning the misuse of European funds.
