Page 36 - bne magazine September 2023

36 I Central Europe bne September 2023
Slovak President Zuzana Caputova has asked interim Prime Minister Ludovit Odor to call a meeting of the state's Security Council. / bne IntelliNews
Slovak president asks PM to summon Security Council after wave of arrests
ASlbin Sybera
lovak President Zuzana
Caputova has asked interim Prime Minister Ludovit Odor to call a meeting of the state's
Security Council following another round of arrests of police and security officials on August 17. Odor called the Security Council for August 18.
The police operation included a raid on the house of the head of the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) Michal Alac, who now faces charges of involvement in a criminal ring.
Odor, who heads the technocratic cabinet steering the country to September 30 snap elections, urged calm and stressed that there should be no intervention in police work.
Several Slovak media reported the presence of masked units from the
www.bne.eu
National Criminal Agency (NAKA) of the Police Presidium – which deals with the most serious instances of organised crime – in the SIS building and in
the building of the National Security Authority (NBU), the central government body for protection of classified information, cryptographic services, trust services and cyber security.
As part of the “Rozuzlieni” (Resolution) raid, five persons were charged
with being part of a criminal group, including Alac and his predecessor Vladimir Pcolinsky, who is also charged in another investigation already.
NBU boss Roman Konecny and two ex-members of NAKA’s now-defunct investigation team Obluk were also put under investigation. Ex-policeman Jan Kalavsky, who is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he asked for asylum, is also charged.
A unit completely separated from the Bratislava branch of NAKA is in charge of the investigation.
At a press conference held in the afternoon of the same day, police chief Stefan Hamran said the raid was aimed at cracking a criminal ring, which has been under investigation since last April, though not all the main suspects were apprehended. Hamran and NAKA’s head Lubomir Danko pointed to businessman Peter Kosc who was supposed to have exercised influence over SIS through the intelligence agency's current and previous chiefs.
Slovak police have launched a wave of investigations and arrests of policemen, prosecutors and judges to clean up the security and justice systems following fears that they had come under
the influence of businessmen and