People protested at the Smer party congress December 10, 2016, holding a banner with businessman Ladislav Bašternák and Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák. (source: SITA)
Filip Rybanič, assistant of the opposition MP for Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) Jozef Rajtár, will face court for peering into the bank account of Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák at the time he was working for Tatra Banka.
The opposition, however, says the investigators made a mistake. They referred to the outcome of the legal analysis of the investigation file written by former prosecutor Eva Mišíková. She opines that the court should not deal with the case at all, the Sme daily reported.
“The analysis finds the file completely illegal,” Rajtár said, as quoted by Sme.
After submitting a criminal complaint the investigator did not submit any proof that would confirm a crime had been committed. Thus, the conditions for prosecution were not met, added Rajtár, who organised a press conference on August 1 with his party colleague Ľubomír Galko.
Rybanič, according to media reports, looked last year at the personal accounts of Kaliňák, former finance and transport minister Ján Počiatek, and businessmen Ladislav Bašternák and Marián Kočner. He said afterwards that Kaliňák and Bašternák had certain business links.
Mišíková’s analysis states that the investigator launched the prosecution even though it was not clear at the time whether Rybanič looked at the bank accounts with the intention of passing the information to unauthorised people, the TASR newswire reported.
Bašternák, who is suspected of tax fraud, confessed to some unlawful moves during a police investigation, but later retracted his testimony, stating that it was made under pressure, TASR informed.
Galko described the decision to prosecute Rybanič as Kaliňák’s and Prime Minister Robert Fico’s revenge and a warning to all people who want to fight corruption. Bašternák owns the Bonaparte complex in which Fico rents a flat.
SaS further claimed that Kaliňák has influenced the investigation via Bernard Slobodník, director of the National Financial Police Unit. As evidence it pointed to the official record of Slobodník’s announcement that Kaliňák as a damaged party was too busy to take part in studying the dossier after the investigation was concluded. He asked for a new date instead, TASR reported.
The Interior Ministry meanwhile issued a statement, claiming that Kaliňák has not been interfering in any way in the investigation.
“The criminal complaint was filed by Tatra Banka,” the ministry’s press department said, as quoted by TASR. “The interior minister appears as the damaged party, so he has the right to see the dossier, like any other citizen would.”
