The violence ensued near a pizza restaurant in Košice. (source: SME/Judita Čermáková)
On 22 November, Martin Paška, the technical director at Bytový podnik mesta Košice (BPMK) the city housing management company in Košice; his brother Branislav , an employee at Košice University Hospital and their third brother Maroš, a police officer, attended a birthday party. A fight began while they were chatting in the street.
Ján, a man who was involved in the fight, says that he was protecting his girlfriend from Paška's nephews who were harassing her. On the recording taken by a street camera and published by the private broadcaster Markíza, Branislav Paška pushed her and Ján responded with another push. Both men ended up on the ground, fighting, and Branislav's other brothers joined in the fight along with Ján’s cousin.
“When I saw how one of them was harassing her I pushed him,” Ján told the Košický Korzár, a regional newspaper. “I was protecting my girlfriend.”
After the media broke the story Martin Paška stated that he had decided to resign from his post and leave the BPMK.
“You know, when whole city, together with the Mayor (Richard Raši), started to be interested in my personal activities I made my decsion,” Martin Paška told the Košický Korzár.
Maroš Paška will also lose his job as police officer.
“His staying in the post would harm the important interests of state service,” Interior Ministry stated, as quoted by Košický Korzár.
One of the ruling Smer party’s key strongmen, Pavol Paška, resigned as speaker of the Slovak parliament in November 2014 after two rallies against corruption in health care took place. These were related to the scandal regarding an overpriced computer tomography (CT) device which was purchased by Pieštany hospital. Paška was in the past a representative of the firm Medical Group SK, which won the dubious CT tender.
*The title of this article, originally saying Paška's sons brutally attacked woman has been corrected on Nov 27 at 12:19. We apologise for the mistake.
