The Slovak chief has repeatedly accused judges and prosecutors who probe his allies of political bias.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has criticised a choose who convicted the governor of the nation’s central financial institution in a corruption case.
Reacting to the conviction of Petr Kazimir, his former finance minister, the combative premier urged on Friday that the decision was politically motivated, and that Specialised Legal Court docket choose Milan Cisarik needs to be investigated for prison acts.
Since returning to energy in 2023, Fico has torn down police and prosecutor models set as much as examine corruption throughout his earlier years in energy between 2012 – 2020.
Kazimir was discovered responsible and fined 200,000 euros ($226,500) on Thursday for bribing a tax official throughout his tenure as finance minister in Fico’s earlier authorities. Claiming that the longstanding expenses had been fabricated, he denied any wrongdoing and mentioned that he plans to attraction.
The bribery expenses in opposition to Peter Kazimir stem from his time serving as finance minister beneath Fico’s earlier authorities (File: Bloomberg)
“The choose’s resolution raises the query whether or not it ought to have served political goals of the opposition to break the ruling events, as a result of even a regulation school scholar should see deadly nonsense within the verdict,” the Slovak chief mentioned on Thursday.
“I can’t shake off the sensation that it’s justified to take a look at potential suspicion that the choose dedicated a number of prison acts and at what the ruling was speculated to serve.”
The courtroom didn’t reply to Fico’s remarks. The For Open Justice (ZOJ) NGO warned: “Questioning a selected judgment via public statements by members of the federal government can be perceived as oblique political strain on the judiciary.”
Revenge
Fico fell from energy in 2020 amid the scandal over the 2018 assassination of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. The brand new authorities arrange particular models to research a suspected community of corruption across the former PM and his interior circle.
Fico routinely complained that the measures had been politically motivated. On returning to energy in late 2023, he instantly started tearing up the models and amended the prison code to decrease punishments for corruption.
Critics have accused him of changing into obsessive about exacting revenge on these concerned in probes in opposition to his circle.
Kazimir, was the primary of Fico’s former ministers to face trial when he first confronted the courtroom in April 2023 accused of paying a bribe of 48,000 euros ($54,360) in 2017-18 to the chief of the nation’s tax workplace, in reference to an audit of a variety of personal corporations.
His time period on the head of the Nationwide Financial institution of Slovakia ends on June 1, however he’ll keep on till a substitute is appointed.
