Anger mounts after Slovak reporter’s murder

Jan Kuciak, 27, had been investigating alleged links between top government figures and the Mafia

THE flowers have started to wilt, but the shock and anger remain vivid.

Outside the office of the news organisation where Jan Kuciak worked, bouquets and candles have been arranged in front of photographs of the journalist and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova.

The couple, both 27, who intended to marry in the spring, were found shot dead in their home outside Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, on February 25. The murders, which bore all the hallmarks of a professional hit, prompted outrage in this small country of just five million people, leading to the biggest rallies the country has seen since the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989 brought down decades of Communist rule.

Thousands of Slovaks have marched against institutionalised corruption, from Bratislava on the banks of the Danube to eastern towns on the border with Ukraine. Yesterday the crisis brought down Robert Fico, the prime minister, who tendered his resignation to Andrej Kiska, Slovakia’s president.

At the glass-plated office where the reporter worked, colleagues from the news website Aktuality vowed to continue the work he started. The young journalist was investigating alleged links between senior government figures and the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, which hails from Calabria in southern Italy.

He had found evidence from court documents claiming that companies owned by Italian families, allegedly with links to the ‘Ndrangheta, acquired farmland in Slovakia through intimidation and fraudulently claimed huge EU subsidies. One mafia-linked company allegedly claimed subsidies eight times greater than the land it owned.

“Just between 2015 and 2016, the companies around these families managed to get more than eight million euros in direct payments from the Agricultural Payments Agency (the Slovakian body that handles EU subsidies),” Mr Kuciak wrote in his last story, which was unfinished and published posthumously.

They were also milking the EU system for subsidies for green power projects, exaggerating the amount of electricity their biogas plants were producing and receiving millions of euros from Brussels, Mr Kuciak reported. “I never thought something like this could happen,” Peter Habara, deputy editor of Aktuality and a friend of Mr Kuciak, told The Daily Telegraph.

“We thought maybe we’d get bullets in the post or threats via the internet, maybe a car torched, but not murder.”

Security has been ramped up since Mr Kuciak’s death. Two armed police officers guard the entrance to the building, while inside private security guards are stationed outside the newsroom. “I think we’re safe for the next few months but after that it is really hard to say. There are a lot of dangerous people in this country,” said Mr Habara.

Mr Kuciak is the first journalist to have been murdered in the history of Slovakia, which was part of Czechoslovakia until the “velvet divorce” of 1993.

He reported that a topless model who was appointed as a senior aide to Mr Fico had previously been the girlfriend and business partner of an alleged member of the ‘Ndrangheta. Maria Troskova, who competed in the 2007 final of the Miss Universe contest, has denied any wrongdoing but resigned from her job pending the murder investigation. Viliam Jasan, an MP and head of the state security council to whom Troskova had been an assistant, also resigned.

Troskova’s ex-lover, Italian business- man Antonino Vadala, was arrested over the murder of the journalist, but later released. However, on Tuesday the 42-year-old was arrested again, on unrelated charges of drug trafficking. Italy is now seeking his extradition. No one has been charged with the murders and the alleged ‘Ndrangheta link has not been proved. Some experts are doubtful that they would resort to killing a journalist. “The ‘Ndrangheta generally tries to avoid violence in order to stay under the radar. They would think twice before ordering a hit like this because they know there will be repercussions,” said Federico Varese, a professor of criminology and mafia expert at Oxford University.

Mr Fico’s resignation was not a solution to the crisis, said protest organiser Laura Palencikova. “This is not democracy. We are going to fight.”

‘We thought maybe we’d get bullets in the post or threats via the internet; maybe a car torched, but not murder’