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Prosecutor Michal Šúrek and the former head of Slovakia’s elite NAKA police unit, Ľubomír Daňko, were charged along with two former police investigators with abuse of power by the country’s police inspectorate on Tuesday.
All had previously worked on a corruption case codenamed “Purgatory,” in which Prime Minister Robert Fico, Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák, former national police chief Tibor Gašpar and other high-ranking officials were suspected of corruption and manipulating police investigations.
Daňko, who denies the allegations, told Slovak daily Denník N that he was being falsely accused.
Ján Čurilla and Pavol Ďurko, the detectives charged, have faced attacks from politicians from the ruling coalition Smer and Hlas parties. Both were suspended two days after Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok took office last year following Fico’s victory in the Sept. 30 parliamentary election.
In what is now Fico’s fourth term in power, his government has abolished the Office of the Special Prosecutor that was tasked with investigating EU budget fraud and high-profile corruption cases — including Purgatory. The European Commission and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office had previously urged Slovakia not to shutter the office.
The EU executive’s recent rule of law report on Slovakia, released on Wednesday, said the move “raise[d] concerns as regards the effective fight against corruption and the protection of EU financial interests” in Slovakia. The Commission also warned Bratislava that the country risked losing EU funding.
Among the officials charged, prosecutor Šúrek is the only one who continues to work on the Purgatory investigation. Critics fear the charges might represent an attempt to get him booted from the case.
According to the charging document, the detectives made procedural errors during their investigation, such as logging police interrogations in the wrong file. They face 7-12 years in prison if found guilty by a court.
