General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka (source: Sme - Jozef Jakubčo)
Slovakia’s former anti-corruption police chief in eastern Slovakia, Matej Varga, has been charged with sabotage, a crime rarely seen in the country since the fall of communism, for allegedly ordering covert surveillance of the country’s top prosecutors amid a politically explosive criminal case involving the current prime minister, Robert Fico.
Varga was detained by the Interior Ministry’s police inspectorate on Tuesday morning and questioned until late in the evening. The inspectorate is responsible for investigating alleged misconduct by police officers. Varga was released on Wednesday night without pre-trial detention after the regional prosecutor in Košice declined to file a custody request. Varga’s lawyer, Peter Kubina, stated that the prosecutor released his client after being asked by the police inspectorate to consider requesting custody.
“The sabotage charge already failed its first contact with the prosecution,” Kubina wrote.
According to Kubina, the case illustrates that when decisions are made by prosecutors outside what he described as a long-standing “clan”, the law is upheld even in preliminary proceedings. He also criticised Interior Minister and Hlas party leader Matúš Šutaj Eštok and police inspectorate head Branislav Zurian, suggesting that the cost of their actions to the state “is now growing faster than the budget deficit.”
