Journalist murdered after linking Slovak politicians to the mafia

A MURDERED Slovak journalist was probing alleged high-level political corruption linked to the Italian mafia, the news platform he worked for claimed yesterday.

Jan Kuciak’s killing has prompted the resignation of senior political figures and calls for new anti-corruption protests in the EU state after a wave of demonstrations last year.

Mr Kuciak’s final article for the website aktuality.sk, republished in other Slovak media in solidarity, focused on fraud cases involving businessmen linked to Prime Minister Robert Fico’s governing SMER-SD party. The revelations forced Marek Madaric, the culture minister, and Maria Troskova, a close aide that Kuciak alleged had ties to Italian businessmen purportedly involved with the ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate, to step down.

Opposition politicians have also demanded the interior minister and police chief step down, accusing them of failing to protect Kuciak when he filed criminal complaints after receiving threats. Kuciak, 27, and Martina Kusnirova, his fiancée, were found shot dead on Sunday at his home in Velka Maca, east of the capital Bratislava.

At the stroke of midnight, aktuality published Kuciak’s last, unfinished investigative report on possible political links to Italian businessmen with alleged ties to Calabria’s notorious crime family. “Two people from the circles of a man who came to Slovakia as someone accused in a mafia case in Italy have daily access to the country’s prime minister,” Kuciak wrote. “Italians with ties to the mafia have found a second home in Slovakia. They started doing business, receiving subsidies, drawing EU funds, but especially building relationships with influential people in politics.”

Mr Fico met the editors of top Slovak media outlets to assure them of his government’s commitment to the “protection of freedom of speech and the safety of journalists”.