ENG General News
BRATISLAVA, July 23, (WEBNOVINY)- Police President Jaroslav Spisiak thinks that there is still a chance that the fugitive murder suspect Karol Mello will be once caught somewhere in the world. He said that the police knew where he was hiding but they learned about the issuance of the international arrest warrant for Mello only from the media and the attempt to detain him was thwarted as Mello already left the place. Spisiak did not want to specify further steps of the police.
State Secretary of the Interior Ministry Maros Zilinka finds it unacceptable that Deputy Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka gave a news conference on Friday to inform that Mello was reportedly in hiding in Kosovo. Zilinka insists that such speculations might threaten the result of the investigation. He underscored that the prosecutor picked the arrest warrant at the court in person while he finds it striking that the prosecutor in so serious case failed to inform the investigator and police organs that the arrest warrant for Mello was issued and that he took it over. It is sad, according to Zilinka that the media were informed sooner of the arrest warrant than the police. Zilinka added that the case of Karol Mello has been traumatizing the society in the long run, mainly the steps of the organs that should proceed jointly.
Trnka informed on Friday that the alleged gangland figure Karol Mello is probably in Kosovo. According to Trnka, an investigator of the Office of the Fight against Organized Crime passed this information to a prosecutor working at the General Prosecution Office. The information was that Mello is in Europe but not in an EU country, in a state with which Slovakia has no diplomatic relations as we do not recognize it. Trnka does not have the information Mello would not be in Kosovo. He also explained that any contact with Kosovar judicial organs is unthinkable as Slovakia does not recognize the country. However, regarding whether Mello will be caught, Trnka remains an optimist
Zilinka however says that the fact that Slovakia has not acknowledged Kosovo is not an obstacle to submitting a request for extradition of such person, as a UN Security Council resolution applies to such cases. Zilinka however said Mello was not in Kosovo at the time when the international warrant was issued.
The alleged local mafia boss Karol Mello has been accused in the case of double murder in the village of Most pri Bratislave that took place in 2004. After successfully hiding for years, Polish police special forces arrested him in a luxurious house near the city of Krakow in October 2010. He lived in Poland under false identity until then. He was released by Slovak courts shortly after he was arrested following several years on the run. Mello was released for the first time on May 9, due to procedural errors upon his extradition from Poland as well as in the process of deciding over his custody. He was, however, immediately detained again. Mello then filed a complaint, on the basis of which he was released from pretrial custody for the second time, on May 19. The Bratislava Regional Court came to the conclusion that the court of the first instance had not fulfilled the legal requirements set by the Penal Order to repeatedly imprison the accused as they had already released him from custody in the same case.
SITA