Police chief Hamran: We are used to harsh criticism from politicians, but R. Fico crossed the line | TVNOVINY.sk – TVNOVINY.sk

Updated 12:25 p.m., 8/9/2022 8/9/2022, 10:59 a.m. The President of the Police Force, Štefan Hamran, responded to Robert Fico’s statements at a press conference entitled “Land of Crooked Mirrors”. He attacked the investigators at yesterday’s press conference. “We are used to harsh criticism from politicians,” Štefan Hamran opened the press conference entitled The Land of Crooked Mirrors. However, Robert Fico, according to his words at yesterday’s press conference, crossed the line. Among other things, Fico declared that NAKA is not worked by people, but by animals. “These people have been awarded and honored several times for their contribution within the police force. They were extremely promoted even during the era of Robert Fico and his governments.” Unthinkable in the rule of law, Hamran claims that he agrees with Fico on one point, but the Smer leader, in his words, got the time of their events wrong, he claims. “Atrocities really took place here. However, they took place during the government of Robert Fico, which is also evidenced by the judgments of independent courts.” The leader of Smer has long supported the former special prosecutor Dušan Kováčik, who was found guilty by the court. Hamran thinks that Fico should apologize for the statements related to Kováčik, not attack the investigators. ​According to Hamran, Fico attacks the members of the police force precisely because they prosecute the powerful in this country. According to him, Fico wants to intimidate them and thus influence the results of their work. “It is unthinkable for a politician to assume the powers of an independent and impartial court in a state of law at press conferences. If I am not mistaken, in a true state of law, this is exclusively the right of independent and impartial courts,” Hamran said. “It doesn’t matter what Robert Fico thinks about the ongoing criminal proceedings. It doesn’t matter what I think about them. What matters is what the court thinks, which has absolutely everything on the table,” says the police president. Accused investigators Police President Štefan Hamran expects Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka to intervene in the case of the accused four investigators of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA) and allow it to end, as it is being politically abused. He indicated the suspicious actions of the inspectors of the inspection and some prosecutors. He pointed out that the file of the Inspection Service Office lacks a key piece of evidence, complete audio recordings, which is required by law. “There are also several recordings circulating in the public space, transcriptions of the recordings are quoted in the resolutions, the investigators are blamed for some statement that the investigators do not have at their disposal in the form of an audio recording,” explained Hamran, explaining why the investigators need the recordings to be able to defend themselves. Štefan Hamran . Source: reprofoto When they were allowed to look into the file, the investigators discovered that some transcripts of the recording had been crossed out and replaced with new edited transcripts. However, according to Hamran, the audio recordings are part of the original file, in which the investigators are not prosecuted, as they were excluded from the case in question. Hamran he emphasized that what is important is what an independent and impartial court thinks about ongoing criminal proceedings. In this context, he drew attention to the decision of the regional court, which decided on the detention of the investigators, which concluded that the prosecution of NAKA investigators was unfounded. At the same time, he highlighted a similar decision of the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic in the Purgatory case, where it is written that no there is suspicion of tampering with statements of persons or with other evidence, as Fico said at the press conference. The leader of Smer, Robert Fico, testified at the police in Trnava. The Court, on the contrary, added that he sees an effort to purposefully create the appearance of illegal action by law enforcement authorities. Emphasizes the need for context when interpreting excerpts from writings or recordings. The four investigators were detained by the investigators of the Inspection Service Office in September 2021. They were accused of abuse of authority of a public official and the crime of obstruction of justice. Two of them also in the criminal matter of influencing the truthfulness of witness statements. The Regional Court in Bratislava released them from custody on October 1, 2021 and concluded that their criminal prosecution was unfounded. We turned to the General Prosecutor’s Office with the question of why the audio recordings or their transcriptions have not been made available to the accused NAKA investigators to this day. At the same time, we asked why these recordings are not in their file and how the Prosecutor General perceives this fact. “The General Prosecutor’s Office of the Slovak Republic requests the President of the Slovak Police Force, who is not a law enforcement agency, not to abuse his position and in pending criminal cases not to create pressure on the activities of relevant law enforcement agencies in an unacceptable manner and not to manipulate public opinion through his unilateral statements,” said Dalibor Skladan, the spokesman of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Slovak Republic, in response to our questions.