A DISTRICT Prosecutor's Office issued a criminal complaint against Hedviga Malinová on November 9 after a Bratislava citizen filed the complaint at the investigator's office in Nitra. Jaroslav Maček, a spokesman for the Nitra Prosecutor's Office, confirmed the information for the Sme daily.
The criminal complaint concerns the suspicion of bearing false witness, the spreading of a false alarm, and the encouraging of racial and ethnic tension.
According to district police spokesman Miloš Fábry, the police have not yet received the complaint and therefore he is unable to comment on it. "After filing a criminal complaint, an investigator usually investigates whether or not the complaint contains evidence proving that a crime was committed. If it does, he can then file charges," he said, describing the procedure that would follow such a complaint.
Malinová, a university student, claims to have been attacked in August by two Slovak extremists for speaking Hungarian on her way to university in Nitra. The police announced on September 11 that they had shelved the case because their investigation led them to believe that Malinová had invented the story. They presented a variety of evidence, which appeared to refute her charges and her account of the incident. The conclusions of the police investigation were confirmed by the Attorney General's Office on October 18.
Since the prosecutor has stopped the investigation of the alleged attack, Malinová's counsel now wants to appeal to the General Prosecutor's Office. According to Új Szó, a Hungarian language daily in Slovakia, there is an unofficial agreement that if her counsel does not pursue the matter, the police will not pursue the case against Malinová.
The alleged beating was one of the main events cited by Hungarian politicians and international diplomats in claiming a rise in tensions between Slovakia and Hungary due to the presence of the far-right Slovak National Party in the Slovak ruling coalition.
