Dušan Kováčik is guilty, he got 14 years and forfeiture of property. Fico – REFRESHER also came to see the verdict

Even in his closing remarks, he primarily had a problem with the procedural side of the course of the investigation and the main hearing, and he commented only marginally on the fact. He also drew attention to NAKA investigator Pavel Ďurka, who first investigated his case and was now taken into custody. When he spoke of his innocence, his voice broke and he almost cried. “I’m innocent, I said it at the beginning, I say it now and I’ll say it on my deathbed,“He spoke in an agitated voice. Robert Fico also came to see the verdict in person.

Kováčik: I will be emotional

In his closing remarks, Dušan Kováčik stated that he had been in collusion for 11 months, during which he did not have the opportunity to defend his reputation. He initially criticized him for having only one day to prepare his closing speech. Still, he talked for about three hours.

The former special prosecutor thinks that the attempt to close the main hearing and deliver a verdict is related to the fact that NAKA investigators are currently in custody, who also dealt with his case. He suggests that this is the reason why Judge Pamela Záleská swept away from the table dozens of proposed pieces of evidence that Kováčík’s defense came up with.

Gradually, the former head of the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s Office also commented on the evidence, primarily questioning the cooperating accused Ľudovít Makó and Matej Zeman. “Matej Zeman is probably a clever, but also a notorious liar. Because what the statement, the other facts, “ he remarked. He claims that he does not know the former head of such people, Ľubomír Kudliček, whom he allegedly arranged for release from custody for a commission in 2017.

Among other things, he stated that the late František Böhm could not see him in 2017 with the then head of the Criminal Office of the Financial Administration, Ľudovít Makó, in the Towers restaurant in Bratislava. He claims that they did not meet for the first time in this restaurant until about 2019. According to the indictment, Makó allegedly handed him 50,000 euros in this restaurant for arranging the failure to file a complaint against the release of Kudlička from custody. He criticized that the court at the hearing focused mainly on not filing a complaint instead of emphasizing the alleged corrupt behavior.

Robert Fico also came to see him

Robert Fico has long claimed that Kováčik is a political prisoner. “We are convinced that the case of Dušan Kováčik is made up and fake. He became a victim of a conspiracy. He is a political prisoner who sits innocently and without evidence in custody,“Fico said at a press conference in July 2021. According to the former special prosecutor, they claim that the current government set-up needed to get rid of Kováčik in order to replace Daniel Lipšic as soon as possible.

On 12 August 2021, the head of the Direction surprisingly appeared at the main hearing. According to him, he came to personally look at the testimonies of cooperating witnesses, whom he calls “universal informants”. These are three former members of a group of such people, who in the meantime have been accused of perjury in another criminal case unrelated to Dušan Kováčik.

“Dömötör’s statement clearly demonstrated the manipulation of criminal proceedings. It’s a mockery. It is simply a farce, this whole hearing and this criminal case against Dušan Kováčik, ” Fico stated. It is true that Dömötör confessed to the false statement, but it did not directly concern Kováčik. It concerned Makó and Böhm, who subsequently married Kováčik.

It is related to the sale of apartments on Drotárská Street. However, Robert Fico has been uniting these two cases for a long time to create the impression that the Ecstasy have agreed on Kováčik. The case of the former special prosecutor concerned such people as such, but specifically their boss Ľubomír Kudlička, who, according to the Specialized Criminal Court, arranged for his release from custody for a bribe of 50,000 euros.

Kováčik is a man with a good heart, says Fico’s classmate Čižnár

However, the accusation itself is not based solely on these witnesses, but also on the testimony of the former head of the Criminal Office of the Financial Administration, Ľudovít Makó, and the ex-sisker František Böhm, who committed suicide. Makó’s statement is also confirmed by former deputy head of wiretapping Norbert Paksi.

Dušan Kováčik was represented at the main hearing by the former Attorney General Jaromír Čižnár, who told Judge Pamela Záleská that he knew nothing about corruption and that Kováčik was a man with a good heart. Kudlička did not perceive the dismissal of the former head of the Takáčovs problematically from a professional point of view, he was allegedly angry at that time because he learned about it from the media. He ruled out a sharp conflict with Kováčik for this matter.

Prosecutor Blanka Godžová also testifies against Kováčik, who according to her did not file a complaint about the release of Kudlička from custody on the basis of instructions from Kováčik. This is allegedly confirmed by the official record made by Godžová in this connection.

He was not just a nominee for Smer …

Although Dušan Kováčik is not a direct nominee of the Smer-SD party and has always received relatively broad support in the parliament, his cases are nevertheless mainly associated with the Robert Fico party.

For the first time, Kováčik was elected special prosecutor on May 12, 2004, during the reign of Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda. It received 118 votes from 138 deputies present. It was former Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka who proposed that Military Prosecutor Dušan Kováčik become a special prosecutor at that time.

In 2009, he received 117 votes from deputies in a secret ballot in the National Council of the Slovak Republic. 139 deputies were present at the time. In 2014, Kováčik was supported by 92 of the 118 deputies present.

For 16 years, Dušan Kováčik himself assigned himself the biggest political cases that got stuck on his desk.

… but he often helped with the “direction”

The nickname “62: 0” came from the fact that he did not file a charge in any of the 62 cases he supervised. This also applies to the huge Gorilla case associated with privatization, the financing of the Smer party and the cooperation of oligarch Jaroslav Haščák with the highest political leaders.

In 2014, Kováčik did not even want to deal with suspicious fictitious transfers of flats, for which Ladislav Bašternák subsequently demanded a refund of EUR 2 million from the state. The case in connection with the alleged recording, where a voice similar to Fico talks about how he “won 75 million crowns for the Smer party” for his own head “also went to the loss.

Transcripts of encrypted communication show that a Nitra businessman solved several things for Kočner with Police President Tibor Gašpar and with Special Prosecutor Dušan Kováčik: they helped to obtain confidential information, at the same time they allegedly made important decisions at the initiative of Marian Kočner. This is also indicated in the October 2017 report written by Marian Kočner to Norbert Bödör:

“Good morning. Please, I would like to remind you – ask Dušan if he will decide on the complaint (hotel case). Well thank you,” Marian Kočner wrote shortly after he was accused in the Donovaly case. Kočner is still accused in this economic case.

The last known case is the lifting of the accusation of former Prime Minister Robert Fico of approving racist speeches by convicted extremist Milan Mazurek from the LSN.