A hearing on the investigations into the murders of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana- Galizia and Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova was conducted at a session of European Parliament’s Committee for Civic Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on Wednesday, with Rule of Law Monitoring Group chair Sophie in ‘t Veld present to convey her concerns over inadequate progress in both investigations.

“The reason why we’re here is our concern over the fact that nothing has yet been investigated in Malta or Slovakia. We see no results,” in ‘t Veld told the media. She stated that the pace of the investigation is raising several questions about the independence of certain Slovak authorities, which have not been satisfactorily answered even after the hearing. “Some people don’t seem straightforward, and I’m not even sure what they say is really true,” Veld told us. They would have liked to know, for example, whether the corruption allegations against the government that had been investigated by Ján Kuciak before he died are unraveled. Veld also said that the competence of Europol is very limited, it is therefore very difficult to inspect the state of progress of the investigation.

Also present at the session was Slovak Police Corps First Vice-president Jana Maskarova, who reassured committee members that they “can have confidence in the police and rest assured that the investigation is objective” without any external interference.

However, Branislav Škripek, an MEP for OĽaNO party, said that a range of questions posed by them at the hearing remained unanswered. He believes that it has remained unclear what progress has been made in the investigation. Mr. Škripek also said that the investigation “is stalling”, and the case should be kept on the agenda and protests should continue, demanding specific changes.

Pál Csály, an MEP for SMK-MKP party, said that Slovak investigators themselves have made the investigation more difficult, as they started investigating with a 4-day delay. “Members of the European Parliament are suspicious of the Slovak authorities, as shown by today’s hearing. There is a growing concern that the Slovak government coalition, i.e. Smer represented in the European Parliament and Most-Híd, wants to sweep the case under the carpet, since the case concerns their illegal funding,” Mr. Csáky explained.

As it turned out, the EP specific committee will continue to work until the end of the year and will again visit Bratislava in September to monitor new developments.
(TASR, www.ujszo.sk, 11 July 2018)