Ján Počiatek (l) and Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák (r) (source: Sme)
The police are to draw up the property profiles of Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák, former finance and transport minister Ján Počiatek and businessman Ladislav Bašternák, who is suspected of tax fraud. The reason for this is their involvement in business transactions concerning the company B.A. Haus.
The order was issued by the General Prosecutor’s Office, the TASR newswire reported.
The prosecutor’s office has been investigating the origin of the money Bašternák deposited with B.A. Haus and which the company is now paying out to its co-owner, Kaliňák.
A standard investigation concerning the suspect legality of income from possible criminal activities was carried out, said Peter Šufliarsky, deputy for the criminal department of the General Prosecutor’s Office. It ended without a positive result.
“After repeated scrutiny of the matter, there were no grounds for such a suspicion,” Šufliarsky said, as quoted by TASR. “Nevertheless, he [the general prosecutor] ordered the special prosecutor to secure in this matter the property profiles of all the people involved in the business transactions.”
Criminal report
The property profiles are not prepared as part of the criminal proceedings supervised by the prosecutor, but rather as part of the criminal report, i.e. the operative-investigational activities of the police.
“I know about neither the course nor the results of this criminal report,” Šufliarsky said, as quoted by TASR.
Spokesperson for the Special Prosecutor’s Office, Jana Tökölyová, confirmed that the order to clarify the facts concerning the loans, particularly from the point of of view of the legality of the borrowed finance, was given to the police and that they are currently dealing with it.
The B.A. Haus case
Kaliňák has received payments amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros from B.A. Haus into his account with Tatra Banka. The information leaked to the public after the bank’s employee and assistant to MP for Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) Roman Rajtár, Filip Rybanič, discovered it. He is now facing court proceedings for his actions in breaking the bank's confidentiality, TASR wrote.
The interior minister bought the stock in B.A. Haus from Bašternák who is currently being investigated for dubious VAT refunds. He paid €8,000 for a 50-percent share and also paid €422,000 for the loan Bašternák gave to the company. He is now receiving the money back. These are the funds the General Prosecutor’s Office is interested in, TASR reported.
