Did the murdered Slovak journalist uncover a “mafia state”?

Journalists being murdered is something only meant to happen in police states, said Ivo Mijnssen in Neue Zürcher Zeitung. But now it’s happening in Europe. Last October, the anti-corruption activist Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up in a car bomb in Malta. And last month, Slovak investigative reporter Ján Kuciak was gunned down with his fiancée at their home. Kuciak had been investigating tax fraud and the embezzlement of EU funds. A few months ago he’d allegedly been threatened by a businessman whom he’d accused of engaging in a complex property sale that enabled the fraudulent pocketing of s8m in VAT refunds.

But the hit is more likely to be linked with Kuciak’s research into a 30-year-old former topless model, said SME (Bratislava). He’d wanted to know why Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, had hired this woman, apparently lacking political experience, as a top adviser and then refused to divulge what her job was or whether she’d had security clearance. A little digging showed she had links with a shady Italian businessman wanted by the Italian police for possible involvement with the country’s ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate. Kuciak’s research exposed how the ’Ndrangheta has used Slovak businesses for money laundering and how politicians linked to them have turned a blind eye. It confirms a growing impression that Slovakia has become “a mafia state”, said Arpád Soltész in Noviny (Bratislava). Journalists here have been roughed up often enough, but never killed. Few believe politicians are directly involved, but they do bear moral responsibility for creating a climate of hatred towards the media. In 2016, Fico lashed out when a former staffer of the foreign ministry suggested the ministry had helped itself to European funds during Slovakia’s EU Council presidency. Journalists are “dirty, anti-slovak prostitutes”, said Fico. Such behaviour sends a signal that reporters can be targeted with impunity.

There’s only one way to get to the bottom of this, and that’s for Brussels to get involved, said Ivo Mijnssen. If the ’Ndrangheta is implicated, that has international aspects that are far beyond the capabilities of the Slovak police to investigate. The example of Malta isn’t encouraging. Almost five months later, police are still in the dark about Caruana Galizia’s killing and, after the initial outcry, the story has disappeared from the headlines. Violence against the media is an unwelcome new headache for the EU, and one it needs urgently to get to grips with.