Nearly two years after the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, justice and police in Slovakia filed charges against four suspects. This is a businessman who is suspected of having given the order and three others who committed the murders. One of the suspects has made a confession and has testified against the others.
Slovak investigative journalist Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were shot in their homes on February 21, 2018. Kuciak had been investigating links between politicians, companies and organized crime.
His research, published after his death, uncovered links between the Italian Mafia and employees of the Slovak government, and caused mass demonstrations against corruption and misuse of EU funding. As a result, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico resigned.
In recent months, more and more details from the investigations have become known, as a result of which other politicians and corrupt officials of the judiciary and police also had to resign. They were allegedly bribed by the man suspected of being the originator of Kuciak's murder.
The businessman, who was originally arrested on suspicion of fraud, had apparently collected recordings of conversations and other incriminating material from politicians, entrepreneurs and representatives of the judiciary to be able to blackmail them later.