BRATISLAVA, September 12, (WEBNOVINY) — Interior Minister Robert Kalinak presented a report in parliament on Wednesday on the current state of investigation of the Gorilla political corruption affair that has shaken Slovak society at the end of last year when the extent of influence of a private financial group on politics and privatization in 2005 and 2006 came to light. He said that although investigators questioned about fifty witnesses so far and gathered about 60,000 pages of documentary evidence, it was not yet possible to file charges against anyone specific.
Kalinak confirmed that the police investigating team is actively working and that cooperation with individual components of state power is in order. „I am confident that the team will succeed in putting together the mosaic that we all want to see,“ said Interior Minister Kalinak. According to him, this is an old and very extensive case; on the other hand, the largest ever investigative team in the history of Slovakia is working on it, which received the required material and technical support.
The author of the report, Prosecutor of the Special Prosecution Office Dusan Kovacik states that the investigation plans are constantly supplemented with new tasks. Kovacik has asked to assign new members to the special investigation team from the Office to Fight Corruption. „Investigation of crimes of corruption is the main part of these proceedings,“ he said. According Kovacik is impossible to say now when the investigation will be completed.
The alleged secret service document publicized on the Internet at the end of last year describes political influence of a local financial group on political decisions in 2005 and 2006. The extensive material describes how persons were nominated to state-run enterprises, privatization commissions, and a web of relationships across politics, business, and security services. Although it was confirmed that the secret service surveillance action codenamed Gorilla was actually carried out, the authenticity of the document published on the Internet was not verified, on the contrary, several people featuring in the paper questioned its authenticity.
SITA