shown no such compunctions."

Aktuality.sk, the news portal Kuciak worked for, made similar claims in its reporting on Tuesday. The Slovak publisher is owned by the German-Swiss Axel Springer and Ringier media group.

Kuciak's death was a 'warning'

On Sunday, Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kusnirova were found dead from gunshot wounds in their home in the town of Velka Maca. The authorities were alerted when Kusnirova's mother reported concerns that she had not heard from her daughter in several days. According to the police, ammunition had been arranged around the bodies as if to issue a "warning."

Candlelight vigils have been held across Slovakia for the couple, and there have been renewed calls for more anti-corruption protests in the country following a wave of them last year.

Kuciak was active in reportingon fraud cases involving businessmen with links to Prime Minister Robert Fico's Smer-Social Democracy party.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has offered €1 million ($1.2 million) for information leading to the killers' capture

Second killing

His is the second killing of an anti-corruption journalist in an EU country in the past six months. Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb attack last October.

Tom Gibson, the EU representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told DW: "With two cases of murdered journalists within half a year, it is clear that investigative journalists in EU member states are not safe. Whilst Brussels starts to engage in the latest round of discussions on corruption allegations, officials should at the same time ask themselves: what can we be doing better