Penta financial group co-owner Jaroslav Haščák has turned to the Supreme Court to appeal against a recent Bratislava Regional Court ruling that the publication of a book penned by journalist Tom Nicholson about the so-called Gorilla file could go ahead, the TASR newswire reported on Thursday, August 9.
Haščák is thereby challenging the regional court's decision to overturn a temporary ban issued by Bratislava I District Court preventing Nicholson from releasing his book because the content was unverifiable. The Supreme Court received Haščák's appeal on August 3. He filed a complaint against Nicholson in February, asking the district court to forbid him from going public with his material. The court obliged, choosing to block the book's publication preventively – despite the fact that it had not been completed at the time. The block remained in place until June. The book itself hit bookstores on July 23.
The Gorilla file, which purports to be about a spy-agency investigation into alleged high-level corruption in 2005-6, features Penta and Haščák's name prominently. It was released by anonymous persons on the internet in December 2011, but its contents have never been verified.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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