Interior Minister Denisa Saková after returning from Berlin. (source: TASR )
The investigation into the abduction of a Vietnamese state manager, Trinh Xuan Thanh, from Germany to Vietnam continues, with the Interior Ministry providing full cooperation to German bodies, said Slovak Interior Minister Denisa Saková (Smer) after meeting her German counterpart Horst Seehoffer in Berlin on Monday, September 24.
Saková informed after her return to Bratislava, that Germany is not calling Slovakia to account in the abduction case of the Vietnamese man. Allegedly, the German side will respond to questions on the possible involvement of Slovakia in the abduction only after the investigation is over, the Sme daily reported.
“It was the German interior minister in particular who demanded that he should be informed of the steps taken by the Slovak side in the case of the alleged kidnapping,” said Saková, as cited by the TASR newswire, adding that a German investigator has been allowed to attend all interrogations carried out by Slovak law enforcement bodies.
Saková underlined that neither Berlin nor Bratislava perceives the case as a German-Slovak issue, but rather as a German-Vietnamese and Slovak-Vietnamese problem. She added that Seehoffer unequivocally declared that “there is also great interest on the German side in shedding light on the whole case”.
Saková does not perceive her June statements, in which she trusted the Vietnamese government which claimed that the Vietnamese businessman was not on the governmental plane, to be a mistake. She also keeps insisting that it is impossible to say if the Vietnamese businessman was on the plane or if he was transported from Slovakia to Vietnam against his will because the investigation is not over yet.
The Vietnamese businessman was allegedly kidnapped on July 23, 2017 in Berlin by an armed man. He was then driven by van to Bratislava. Here he was allegedly, drugged and beaten, taken on board the Slovak governmental plane and transported via Moscow to Vietnam.
