Marian Kočner escorted to the courtroom on September 3 to hear the verdict. (source: TASR)
The Specialised Criminal Court has no doubt that mobster Marian Kočner ordered the surveillance of several journalists, including Ján Kuciak, but the information he obtained was not used to plan Kuciak’s murder.
“The aim was to discredit (Kuciak), weaken his authority, professional and personal honour to the extent that his work would be made more difficult and would push him away from working and a social life,” said the three-member senate, comprised of chair Ružena Sabová and other two judges Rastislav Stieranka and Ivan Matel.
They based this claim on the fact that Kočner’s commando spied on Kuciak four months before the murder, concluding that therefore the objective of collecting information about his everyday habits was not in order to plan the murder.
>>> Read more about the Kuciak murder trial
These explanations are part of the 139-page judgement, which in early September acquitted Kočner and his friend Alena Zsuzsová of charges for ordering and mediating the murder of Kuciak, during which his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, was also killed.
