CZECH truck driver Zdeněk Pekara, who had to spend Christmas 2010 in a Turkish jail cell after a failed attempt by Slovak police to net a ring of drug smugglers, has received €25,000 in compensation from the Slovak Interior Ministry for being involved without his knowledge in the police operation, the Sme daily reported.
Both Pekara and the Interior Ministry stressed that it was not the fault of the Slovak police that he was arrested and later banned from entering Turkey for at least a year.
“I’ve had enough,” said Pekara, as quoted by Sme, adding that the compensation was better than turning to the courts. He also said that there were many unclear facts in the story and that he tends to accept the ministry’s version of events.
Pekara was arrested in December 2010 by Turkish police who found narcotics-related chemicals in his truck. Immediately after the arrest Slovak police informed their Turkish counterparts that the driver was part of an international police operation to find and arrest drug dealers, but that he did not know anything about the goods he was transporting.
The Slovak police said that they did not understand why the Turkish police had acted as they did, as they had already been informed about the operation.
