PSYCHIATRIST Jozef Hašto, who was involved in the Hedviga Malinová case, wrote an open letter to Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák saying that she did not lie about being attacked in 2006. The psychiatrist’s letter is a response to Kaliňák’s statement in an interview with the Sme daily in which the minister said the police closed the case by concluding that the attack did not happen.
On August 25, 2006 Malinová claimed she was attacked in Nitra by two unidentified assailants because she was speaking Hungarian in public. The police stopped their investigation in September 2006 and claimed that Malinová had invented the attack.
Malinová then stated that her interviews with police officers in Nitra had been made under duress and filed a complaint with the Regional Directorship of the Police Corps in Nitra. Malinová also turned to the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic and to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Hašto stated in his letter that he treated Malinová for post-traumatic stress disorder caused by three traumas: the attack in which she was beaten unconscious; stress from the police investigation when she believed the police treated her as a criminal rather than as a victim; and brutal but refined threats by police officials.
“It is clear to me that the event happened and that Malinová is a trustworthy person who tells the truth,” Hašto wrote.
