Ján Kuciak's colleagues (source: TASR)
The fifth day of the trial featured the colleagues of Ján Kuciak from the Aktuality.sk news website.
On the defendants' side, only Tomáš Szabó was present in court, as the other three gave permission to carry out without their presence. Marian Kočner is expected in court again on Wednesday, according to the Sme daily.
The senate also said it would decide on whether it would accept the communication from Threema app as evidence. The decision is expected to be announced on January 22, the senate’s chair Ružena Sabová said.
Editor-in-Chief Peter Bárdy was the first witness on day five. He said that Ján Kuciak was working as an investigative journalist on cases linked with criminality, especially money laundering and tax frauds.
“This was the reason why he came across Marian Kočner,” Bárdy said, as quoted by the Sme daily.
Kuciak was helping his colleagues when they needed to find something. Bárdy stated that Kuciak was very good at working with data and open sources. The editor-in-chief said that Kuciak submitted hundreds of requests based on the free information access law every year.
