Slovakia Government's Collapse Not Enough To End Protests Over Journalist's Murder

Enlarge this image toggle caption Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson/NPR Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson/NPR

A love story turned murder mystery led to the collapse of Slovakia's government last week. But that failed to quell the largest protests in the Central European country since 1989, when the Velvet Revolution brought down communism there.

The prime minister-designate, Peter Pellegrini, who was a deputy to his predecessor, Robert Fico, is now scrambling to form a new government to calm the situation. Pellegrini's original picks for his cabinet were rejected by the president and he plans to discuss new names on Wednesday.

Pellegrini is also hoping to restore public trust in his political party Smer-SD or Direction - Social Democracy — a successor to the communists — as well as the other factions that form Slovakia's governing coalition.

The catalyst for the public outrage in the nation of 5.4 million began in what nowadays is a heavily guarded newsroom at Aktuality.sk, an online news site run by a Swiss-German media conglomerate.

There, Ján Kuciak, 27, was part of a three-member investigative team covering corruption in the Slovak government and business community. It was a formidable task in a country where corruption is deeply ingrained in society, a holdover from communist times.

Things were so bad that then U.S. Secretary of State "Madeleine Albright had called Slovakia the 'black hole' of Europe [in the late 1990s] — and for good reasons," said Jozef Bátora, a political science professor at Comenius University in Bratislava.

"This kind of malpractice has been developing in all parts of the society," he added. "Wherever you want to do something in public offices, very often you are sort of expected to pay a little bribe."

Kuciak was determined to uncover just how deep the corruption went. He was a rising star in Slovak journalism known for his reporting on the Panama Papers, leaked documents published in 2016 that showed where wealthy people worldwide hid their assets.

Friends and colleagues say Kuciak was gifted at crunching numbers. "Our editor-in-chief used to joke that he was the most terrible journalist when it came to writing, because when he was looking through the data he always found a lot of connections and wanted to put everything on paper, so to speak," recalled Peter Habara, an editor at Aktuality.sk.

"Ján was a dedicated person — not only a journalist, but a dedicated son of Slovakia, if we can use this term, because he was trying to make this country better," Habara said.

Kuciak also rattled the political and business establishment. Kuciak told Slovak prosecutors last fall that he received a threatening phone call from local businessman Marián Kocner, Habara said. Forty-four days later, authorities had failed to act on that report, Kuciak wrote in an Oct. 20 Facebook post.

The businessman allegedly threatened to set up a website smearing Kuciak and others reporting on his case.

But it was Kuciak's last story that investigators suspect ultimately cost him and his fiancée, Martina Kusnírová, their lives. Police discovered their bodies on Feb. 25 in the white bungalow they'd been renovating since last summer in the small village of Veľká Maca in southwestern Slovakia. He was killed with a gunshot to the chest and she, with a bullet to the head.

Enlarge this image toggle caption David W. Cerny/Reuters David W. Cerny/Reuters

Kusnírová was an archaeologist specializing in ancient history who loved animals, said her friend and fellow archaeologist, Peter Debnár.

She, like Kuciak, was 27 and they had planned to marry in early May. Their friends describe the couple — who met and fell in love in college — as hardworking and socially conscious. The song they'd selected for their wedding is a melancholy ballad called "Sarajevo" by Czech songwriter Jaromír Nohavica about the Bosnian city ravaged in the 1990s during the Balkan war.

Kuciak also wrote a poem for his bride-to-be in which he vowed to love her forever.

Missteps in the subsequent forensic examination and criminal investigation leave a four-day window as to when the couple died, making the murders difficult to solve and ultimately prosecute. Habara says Kuciak often worked remotely and was last in the office on Feb. 21.

His unfinished article, which his colleagues fact-checked and edited, has since been published worldwide. It documents Italian crime gangs infiltrating the poorer, eastern part of Slovakia and shady deals with local politicians and misappropriation of European Union money.

The article links Mária Trosková, a former Miss Universe contestant and one of Fico's assistants, to Antonino Vadala, an Italian businessman living in Slovakia, who Italian authorities allege has ties to the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate. Slovak legislator Viliam Jasan, who is in Fico's party and was part of Slovakia's state security council, is also alleged to have close business ties to Vadala.

Trosková and Jasan announced on Feb. 28 they were leaving their posts until the murders are solved and vehemently deny having anything to do with the killings. NPR requests to interview Fico, his interior minister and other officials within Smer-SD were declined or did not receive a response.

Seven male suspects were detained earlier this month — according to Slovak media, one of them was Vadala — but were released within 48 hours for lack of evidence. Fico, who has repeatedly accused reporters and the opposition of using the tragedy to further their own agendas, also held a news conference on March 1 offering a 1 million euro ($1.2 million) reward to find the couple's killers. The money was piled in neat stacks in front of him on a table.

"I have to say that I felt a bit sick when I saw that," Habara recalled. It was "one of the biggest flaws I've ever seen in any kind of moral authority here in Slovakia."

Many other Slovaks felt that way, too, said Ján Orlovský, who heads the Open Society Foundations in Slovakia. "It's like, you know, the little pot with the lid. So the pressure builds up and then something unexpected comes out.

"It was a major mistake of the government not to say, 'We are very sorry, we will investigate and these people will be removed right away,' because that's their political responsibility," he added. "It was just another show of arrogance, like we can afford [to do] anything and you can't do anything."

Except they did, said Juraj Seliga, who is a lawyer and one of the organizers of the mass protests calling for justice and early elections. Slovaks "are really sad, really angry young people were murdered like this. And they're really seriously suspicious that the reason for the murders was Jaán's work," he explained. When you have tens of thousands of people in the streets, "there is a real hope for change," Seliga said.

Enlarge this image toggle caption Vladimir Simicek/AFP/Getty Images Vladimir Simicek/AFP/Getty Images

But the chance of early elections sought by demonstrators may have been thwarted when Fico and his cabinet resigned Thursday. At the moment, the man expected to be the next prime minister — Pellegrini — has 79 of the 150 votes in parliament.

That means he can get a new cabinet approved and avoid a no-confidence vote, said Veronika Remisová, who heads the opposition OĽaNO caucus. "We will try to showcase the wrongdoings of the coalition and we hope that in the next election ... people will elect a better government."

She, Habara, Seliga and many other Slovaks hope continued public pressure will force the current governing coalition out sooner. More demonstrations are expected on Friday.</s>BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia's president on Tuesday rejected a proposal for a new government amid a political crisis triggered by the killing of a journalist and his fiancée.

Prime Minister Robert Fico's three-party coalition resigned last week following street protests in the wake of the slayings, which shined a light on possible government corruption.

President Andrej Kiska asked Fico's deputy prime minister, Peter Pellegrini, to form a new government. But Kiska rejected Pellegrini's proposal, which involved the same three parties that were in the previous government.

Kiska said that tensions in Slovakia wouldn't be calmed by the offer, and gave Pellegrini until Friday to come up with a better plan. Pellegrini said he would make a new proposal as soon as Wednesday.

The president said the proposed interior minister, Jozef Raz, was a problem because of his ties to his predecessor, Robert Kalinak, who was previously linked to corruption scandals.

Before he was slain, Jan Kuciak was reporting on alleged Italian mafia ties to associates of Fico and corruption scandals linked to Fico's leftist Smer-Social Democracy party. Kalinak is Fico's close ally in the party.

Kiska said it was unlikely that Pellegrini's proposed government could "ensure an independent investigation into the slayings of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova and suspicions about the activities of organized crime (that Kuciak) was writing about."

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have rallied repeatedly across Slovakia since the bodies of Kuciak and Kusnirova were found on Feb. 25, in the biggest anti-government protests since the 1989 anti-Communist Velvet Revolution.

Organizers announced more protests for Friday. In a statement, they demanded a thorough and independent investigation into the shooting deaths, including the participation of international investigators, and the creation of a "trustworthy government."</s>Slovakia’s prosecutor general has asked Italian authorities to create a joint investigative team with their Slovakian counterparts in the hunt for the killer of a journalist and his fiance.

Jaromir Ciznar said he expects such an investigation into the fatal shooting of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova would be faster, more thorough and more effective.

Mr Kuciak was reporting on alleged Italian mafia ties to associates of then-prime minister Robert Fico, and corruption scandals linked to his leftist Smer Social Democracy party, when he was shot dead in February. The death sparked political turmoil in Slovakia.

Officials previously said the FBI, Scotland Yard, Europol and police forces from Italy and the Czech Republic are helping with the investigation.

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters rallied across Slovakia on Friday to demand an early election after Mr Fico’s government resigned last week.</s>Professional hitmen, deadly bullets to the head, mayhem, enormous crowds marching in anger, a government in meltdown, and behind it all, apparently, the 'Ndrangheta, the ferocious Calabrian mafia.

But this is not Italy. This is little Slovakia, a country of just 5.4 million nestled in central Europe, sharing borders with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Austria.

Once it was part of Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakia was part of the communist empire. The empire crumbled and in 1992 Slovakia became independent. In 2004 it joined the European Union.

Life improved. Prime Minister Robert Fico took to calling his country "a little Slavic tiger." It is now a tiger in the mire, covered with the mud of murder and corruption.

Fico, it turns out, was at the heart of the problem. Or, more precisely, it was his decision to hire Maria Troskova as his government assistant in 2015 that set the sad and sordid story in motion. She came recommended by the secretary of a government security council for whom she had worked briefly.

Troskova was 27 and had once been a contestant in the Miss Universe contest. She had no obvious qualifications to be a prime ministerial assistant and Fico refused to offer any details about her duties. She did, however, have connections.

She had once worked as an assistant to a former politician, Pavol Rusko, who owned a television station. He was recently arrested for allegedly hiring an assassin to kill his business partner in the 1990s.

She also knew Antonino Vadala, an Italian businessman who owned a network of agricultural companies in Slovakia. In fact she had been his business partner.

That partnership set a Slovak journalist, Jan Kuciak, on an investigative hunt. He discovered that Vadala was well known to the Italian police. They had identified him as a member of 'Ndrangheta, an organized crime group, and a likely drug "broker" for its international trade.

Vadala was also caught on wiretaps discussing where to hide a drug trafficker and murderer who was later caught and sentenced to life in prison.

Kuciak was working with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a multi-country co-operative. But before he could publish his findings, he and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, were found in their house on Feb. 25. Each had been shot in the head. The killers appeared to be professionals.

The country was stunned. For those old enough to remember, it brought back memories of the blood-spattered 1990s under the authoritarian but corrupt government of Vladimir Meciar.

"In those days there were cadavers in the streets. Car bombs were exploding every week," Slovak philosopher Fedor Blascak, told the Czech paper Lidové Noviny. "People are terrified of returning to that brutal and stupid time."

The day after the murders, to head off criticism, Fico went on national television and offered a €1 million reward (about $1.6 million) for information about those who ordered the killings. He had the bills right there for good measure, piled on a table.

As theatre, it backfired. "Usually it's the Russian mafia that puts on that kind of show," Arpad Soltesz, a Slovak journalist, told Le Monde. "Not the head of a government in the European Union. That level of cynicism enraged everyone."

That rage filled the streets. On March 2, the day of the funerals of Kuciak and his fiancee, what is believed to be the largest crowd since the fall of communism filled the streets. People demanded a government cleanout.

The implosion began within days. Troskova stepped aside. Two ministers and the security council secretary resigned.

But Fico clung on. He attacked Slovakia's ceremonial president, Andrej Kiska, who had called for early elections, and suggested Kiska was part of a vague international conspiracy because he had met the billionaire financier George Soros in New York.

Soros is the founder of the Open Society Foundation to promote democracy in countries emerging from autocracy. Fico called him "a man of doubtful reputation."

It didn't work. Fico was forced from office earlier this week but clung to his post as leader of his party, insisting he would continue to play an active political role. The following day, tens of thousands of people again filled the streets demanding new elections.

And the 'Ndrangheta? As many Slovaks feared, the murder investigation seemed to be going nowhere. A delegation of European MPs called for Europol to step in to take it over.

Whether the murderers and their bosses will ever be caught is somewhat secondary to the main problem, according Roberto Saviano. He is the author of Gomorrah, an investigative book on the 'Ndrangheta. Since its publication in 2006 he has been in hiding, under Italian police protection.

Saviano underlines in an article published on May 2 in the Italian daily La Repubblica that the Calabrian mafia have long had tight links with Slovakia going back to communist times. The 'Ndrangheta particularly liked a cheaper, more lethal version of the Kalashnikov submachine gun invented in Czechoslovakia. With the breakup of the country ,'Ndrangheta men bought thousands of these weapons from military depots and made a tidy profit selling them.

This was one of the weapons used by the killers in the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 12 people in January 2015 in Paris.

What the mafias couldn't do under communism in Slovakia was buy property. That changed in the 1990s and they quickly moved in.

Saviano says that Slovakia, and several of its neighbours, are transit countries for 'Ndrangheta heroin coming from Afghanistan.

Bribes, payoffs and friends with jobs in high places kept the system out of the public eye. When journalists started getting too close, other means were called for.

"They are sending a message," Saviano said. "You are all in our sights. We can wipe out people like you."

It seems unlikely that a change of ministers, or even a change of government, can root that out.</s>Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico has signaled he is willing to resign, after mass protests erupted over the murder of a journalist investigation corruption in the country. Matthew Larotonda reports.</s>BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia’s president has rejected a proposal for a new government following a crisis triggered by the killing of a journalist and his fiancee.

Last week, the three-party coalition of Prime Minister Robert Fico resigned following massive street protests in the wake of the slayings that shone a light on possible corruption in the government.

President Andrej Kiska asked Fico’s deputy prime minister, Peter Pellegrini, to form a new government but his proposal involving the same three parties that were in the previous government was rejected.

Kiska said tensions in Slovakia would not be calmed by the proposal and he has given Pellegrini until Friday to come up with a better proposal.</s>On the morning of Monday 26 February, Slovakia learned of a double murder: a young investigative journalist and his girlfriend had been shot dead. It happened in their small house, in a village not far from the Slovakian capital Bratislava. Someone called to tell me what had happened, and I thought: Oh, that’s terrible. That was it.

I’d never heard the name Ján Kuciak before. I’d never read his articles – nobody had pointed them out to me. And even if they had, I might not have been able to concentrate hard enough to follow the tangled links he described, links so complicated that they resembled chemical formulas. It was very cold that day, but in Bratislava the pictures of the smiling couple – who were the same age as my own adult children – started appearing in public places, as people lit candles and placed them by the photographs. Nothing would ever be the same again.

We simply stopped going about our normal lives. We devoured the news reports, press conferences, discussions and Facebook posts. Kuciak’s last, unfinished article, made available by his editor the next day and published by all the newspapers, was read by more people than any other article anyone can remember.

The story that Kuciak told is in fact a jumble of stories, featuring members of ’Ndrangheta – the Calabrian organised crime syndicate – mixed up with Slovaks through investments, agricultural lands benefitting from European subsidies but where nothing is grown, and bankrupt businesses. All this Kuciak connected to judges, tax authorities and politicians from the ruling party. You can read it as a police report, a sociological study, a comedy or drama. In this story there’s even a beautiful woman who enjoyed a meteoric career, rising from being a model in an ad for tractors to become a business person and then a close associate of the prime minister – a journey that led her to a Calabrian businessman as well. Yes, it reads like a soap opera too.

This is the Slovakia we now confront in disbelief. Anyone who read Kuciak’s last article could see the absurdity of a murder investigation being supervised by the very same people Kuciak pointed to in his reporting: the minister of the interior Robert Kaliňák and prime minister Robert Fico (who have since stepped down in response to public protest). The response has been a series of street protests, the largest in our country’s history.

Crowds were even bigger than those of the November 1989 velvet revolution. People gathered simultaneously throughout the country and even beyond its borders. These were by no means the first protests against corruption. But anger at someone who schemed to steal from you is one thing. Paying tribute to a murdered journalist who uncovered that scheme, and standing by his grieving family, is quite another.

Slovakia is no longer divided between the opposition and the governing coalition, the liberals and the Catholics, the left and the right. It’s divided between those who mourn Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, and the very few who don’t.

If politicians had called for rallies, they would not have achieved protests on this massive scale. Instead, the demonstrations have been organised by students. They give the podium to Kuciak’s sister, Mária. And invite activists, including gay rights defenders, and also a bishop who was thrown out of the church for having revealed financial discrepancies within its local hierarchy. People are shouting for the government to step down. The creativity of ordinary people has produced slogans that make fun of political leaders in a hundred ways, even quoting Shakespeare, among other writers.

Overnight, our pro-European prime minister became desperate enough to spew out conspiracy theories, in just the way that the far right does, but to little effect. After he blamed George Soros for fuelling the protests, people laughed, and the press laughed too. One young boy at one of the demonstrations wore a sign on the back of his coat saying: “I am too old to believe in fairytales about Soros.”

What Fico apparently forgot, when he tried to talk like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, is that Orbán has had years in which to shape his illiberal regime, and has thoroughly taken over the Hungarian media. Yet today, Slovakia is not primed for dictatorship, nor for fascism. In the 1990s we were the first country in post-communist central Europe to experience rule by a strongman – when Vladimír Mečiar governed. In the end, Mečiar’s regime was ousted by a wave of civil resistance.

It’s too soon to know the outcome of the recent protests. Romania and Bulgaria stand as examples of countries where huge anti-corruption demonstrations have failed to bring significant political change. It doesn’t help that in Slovakia there is no obvious pro-European alternative to the current government. But it’s still possible that we will manage to change the atmosphere for more than just a few weeks. I believe that our country of 5.4 million people has shown itself to be ready for democracy, thanks in large part to how young people have responded.

Czechs and Slovaks are fascinated by “magic numbers”. Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 and ceased to exist in 1938 when the Munich agreement allowed Hitler to carve it up. The communists took power with a coup in 1948. The Prague spring happened in 1968. Mečiar, whose regime was heading down the road to dictatorship, was defeated in 1998.

Ján Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kušnírová were killed because they threatened the mafia. After Soviet troops crushed the Prague spring in 1968, a student, Jan Palach, set fire to himself in Prague, in the name of a free Czechoslovakia.

These stories may be different, but they have something in common: their heroes were so young.
• Marta Frišová is a Slovak journalist, and co-founder of the Central European Forum in Bratislava</s>The following content is sourced from external partners. We cannot guarantee that it is suitable for the visually or hearing impaired.

This content was published on March 19, 2018 4:49 PM

Demonstrators attend a protest rally in reaction to the murder of Slovak investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, in Bratislava, Slovakia, March 16, 2018. REUTERS/David W. Cerny

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia's ruling party sought on Monday to avert an election by offering the job of Interior Minister to a non-partisan official, to investigate the murder of a journalist whose death caused a crisis that brought down Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Fico, head of the ruling Smer party and prime minister for 10 of the last 12 years, resigned last week in the face of the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the fall of Communism in 1989, triggered by the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak, 27, who was investigating government corruption.

Fico's choice for successor, long-time ally Peter Pellegrini, was due to meet President Andrej Kiska later on Monday to propose a new cabinet.

Thousands of Slovaks have taken to the streets to demand an investigation and new elections since Kuciak and his fiancee were shot dead in their home last month.

Kiska, whose role as president is otherwise largely ceremonial, must decide whether to accept a proposal for a new government of the Smer-led coalition, or call a new election.

Pellegrini, a deputy prime minister under Fico, said the new interior minister in charge of law and order would be Jozef Raz, a political independent who now serves as chief of staff at the Health Ministry.

Kiska has backed protesters' demand to sideline Fico's close ally Robert Kalinak, who has run the Interior Ministry in all three Fico-led governments, to guarantee a thorough investigation of the murder.

"I believe I am going to the president with nominations that should not raise any aversion," Pellegrini told a news conference after a Smer leadership meeting.

"We decided to pick a non-partisan (for the Interior Ministry). That gives us a chance that he will not be just an expert, but will also bring calm in these complicated times and not raise suspicions of pushing someone's party interests."

"If we proposed the best candidate that would be a Smer party member, it would raise passions and it would be a handicap even if it was the best candidate we had."

Raz studied economics and law. He has led the Defence Ministry's acquisition and organisation departments and served as a manager at the state-owned postal service prior to joining the Health Ministry in 2016.</s>BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) - Slovakia's prosecutor general has asked Italian authorities to create a joint investigative team with their Slovak counterparts in the case of the slaying of a journalist and his fiancee that triggered a serious political crisis.

Jaromir Ciznar says he expects such a team's investigation into the slayings of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova would be faster, more complex and more effective.

Kuciak was reporting on alleged Italian mafia ties to associates of then-Prime Minister Robert Fico, and corruption scandals linked to his leftist Smer Social Democracy party.

Candles are placed in memory of slain journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova as Slovaks celebrate the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico and his government as a way out of the political crisis triggered by the slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee, during a rally in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, March 16, 2018.(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

The Slovaks previously said the FBI, Britain's Scotland Yard, Europol and police forces from Italy and the Czech Republic are helping with the investigation.

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters rallied across Slovakia Friday to demand an early election.

People celebrate the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico and his government as a way out of the political crisis triggered by the slayings of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, during a rally in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, March 16, 2018.(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)</s>BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia’s president agreed with some misgivings Wednesday to appoint a new government to replace the one that resigned amid a political crisis triggered by the killings of a journalist and his fiancee.

President Andrej Kiska said Wednesday that he was still not fully satisfied with the lineup proposed by former Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, he nonetheless would appoint Pellegrini’s government on Thursday.

The new government “will have to fight to win public trust,” the president said.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s three-party coalition stepped down last week last week following large street protests sparked by the slayings of reporter Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova.

The two were shot dead in their home and the killings have shined a light on possible government corruption.

Kiska asked Pellegrini, Fico’s deputy, to form a new government, but rejected Pellegrini’s first proposal over the person picked to be interior minister, who had ties to former Interior Minister Robert Kalinak and therefore the corruption concerns.

Kiska said it was unlikely that a government could ensure an independent investigation into the slayings and suspicions about the activities of organized crime that Kuciak investigated.

Before he was slain, Kuciak was reporting on alleged Italian mafia ties to associates of Fico and corruption scandals linked to Fico’s leftist Smer-Social Democracy party. Kalinak is Fico’s close ally in the party.

Organizers of recent rallies across the country announced more protests for Friday. They are demanding a thorough and independent investigation of the slayings and the creation of a “trustworthy government.”
Protests continue in Slovakia after last week's collapse of the government, which included the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico.