War in police sees first legally convicted actor

The Marián Kučerka trial was dramatic from the beginning.

At first, the former police investigator wanted to make a plea bargain and confess to everything, but upon learning that he would receive a suspended sentence, he changed his mind. He pleaded not guilty and was sentenced to eleven years in prison and forfeiture of property.

The appeal proceeding at the Supreme Court took place in a similarly unusual manner.

Before it even started, Kučerka had travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina to visit a friend. After a few weeks, the visit turned into an escape and Kučerka applied for asylum.

Last week on Thursday, he was finally tried in absentia and received an almost identical sentence as he did previously. The Supreme Court slightly reduced his 11-year sentence for corruption to 10.5 years, but confirmed the confiscation of property.

"The defendant could not have misrepresented his profession more. It is not just that instead of investigating criminal activity, he took bribes to cover it up, but also how he took the bribes," Juraj Kliment, the head of the senate, explained the decision.

Kučerka was found guilty of tampering with two cases - in the first case, he received €25,000 to ensure that the police would not charge former minister Peter Žiga's (originally Smer, now Hlas) relative. The second case involved a bribe of €200,000 to cover-up a tax fraud by fuel traders.

The verdict came after the Supreme Court judges gradually cancelled scheduled dates in which they had wanted to make a decision for months. Kučerka refused to return to Slovakia and demanded testifying via teleconference, which was not allowed.

The court started the proceeding after the mid-June decision of the Bosnian authorities to not extradite the former policeman to Slovakia.

Now Slovak courts will probably issue a new arrest warrant for Kučerka. His asylum procedure in Bosnia has not been completed.

"Unless a person voluntarily enters the serving of a sentence, a court has means to try to ensure they will do so," said the supervising prosecutor Daniel Mikuláš from the Special Prosecutor's Office.