- The Kajúcnik action in March is the culmination of a multi-year investigation by the Inspection Service Office.
- ÚIS rejects accusations of political bias and illegal procedure in investigations.
- Several policemen and prosecutor Michal Šúrek were detained in the Kajúcnik action.
- The Kajúcnik case is now supervised by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Banská Bystrica.
The March Kajúcnik event was the culmination of several years of work by the Inspection Service Office (ÚIS). The case concerns suspicions of misuse of criminal law resources. He stated this at a press conference on Tuesday Head of the Veritas ÚIS specialized team, Juraj Lukáč. According to him, the indictment resolution has 133 pages and is full of facts and chained evidence. At the current stage of the criminal proceedings, the file has approximately 23,000 pages. According to Lukáč, the specialized team does not act on the basis of political statements or media comments.
“Several persons have testified about the suspicion of criminal activity by members of the former National Criminal Agency in various proceedings since at least 2020. In 2021, the currently co-accused JK began to testify about these facts,” he added. According to him, the establishment of the specialized Veritas team was a response to dozens of criminal reports, submissions and suggestions that pointed to possible illegal procedures in the conduct of several criminal proceedings. “The detention action called Kajúcnik was the culmination of many years of work by investigators, operatives and analysts of the ÚIS,” emphasized Lukáč.
As he added, at this stage of the criminal proceedings, it is possible to talk about suspicions of manipulation of evidence and the course of evidence in several criminal proceedings. “The investigation is based on concrete facts and documentary evidence. In particular, the identified differences in the content of some procedural documents, contradictions between the individual versions of the prepared documents, as well as the circumstances of their origin and preparation,” he added. He declared that the “detention” action was planned and carried out with respect for the dignity of the detained persons and their families.
Deputy director of the ÚIS and director of the inspection department of the ÚIS Milan Maškara objected to several pieces of information that were sent to the office and the specialized Veritas team in the previous days. He rejected criticism about the illegal actions of the inspection service. According to him, it is not true that the police inspectorate acts only in the criminal cases of members of the former National Criminal Agency. “ÚIS does not have bloody eyes,” he said.
He pointed out that under the current leadership of the ÚIS there has been a strengthening of preventive activities aimed at preventing illegal actions by members of the Police Force and at making the timely adoption of measures more efficient. He spoke, for example, about the increase in the number of accusations brought for corruption crimes. “ÚIS should be the guarantor of compliance with the law, and in this area we have adopted vigorous and effective measures that eliminated the shortcomings introduced by the former management of the ÚIS.” he added.
At the beginning of March, the ÚIS arrested and charged several current and former police officers and the prosecutor of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Slovak Republic, Michal Šúrek, as part of the Kajúcnik action. These are accusations of blackmail or abuse of the authority of a public official, which were allegedly committed in an organized manner. In addition to the accused, the police inspectorate also detained two suspects. The action took place in the Bratislava, Nitra and Banskobystrické regions.
The prosecutor of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Trnava also submitted a motion for custodial prosecution of the accused Ján Čurilla and Pavel Ďurek. However, the courts decided that they would be prosecuted at large. Among other things, they stated that the prosecutor submitted a proposal to a non-jurisdictional court. Pavol Ďurka ruled out that the accused would ever commit a criminal activity and emphasized that they did everything in a legal manner. Prosecutor General of the Slovak Republic Maroš Žilinka decided on Tuesday that the Kajúcnik case will now be supervised and the actions in it carried out by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Banská Bystrica.
