Marian Kočner at the court (source: TASR)
Journalists willing to read through the materials seized by police during the investigation of the murder of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová now have a place to go in Bratislava.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) opened the so-called “Kočner Library”, which contains about 70 terabytes of data. It will be possible to analyse the parts that were not important for the investigatio, the Sme daily renported.
>> Follow the trial in the Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová murder case here
OCCRP gained the data from a source that obtained them legally. After copying and processing it into the form that makes it possible to browse through, the organisation established the Kočner Library in Bratislava. It is a special workplace where accredited journalists and analysts can look through data and analyse them.
Information from the data will be checked and published.
In accordance with the public interest
Among other organisations and media participating in the project are the Aktuality.sk website, the Sme, Denník N and Nový Čas dailies, the Týždeň weekly, the Postoj news website, the Let’s Stop Corruption Foundation, the Ján Kuciak Investigative Centre and broadcasters TV JOJ and TV Markíza.
“Our priority is to secure the safety of data and the responsible treatment of information that we gain,” Pavla Holcová, regional editor of OCCRP and founder of website Investigace.cz, told Sme.
Extraordinary strict safety measures and restrictions apply in the library. All newsrooms signed a contract with OCCRP, pledging to follow the highest ethical and professional standards of journalism.
The aim of the project is to properly analyse information, fact-check and publish it in accordance with the public interest, according to Holcová.
