Illustration photo – Prime Minister of Slovakia Eduard Heger talks to journalists after leaving a meeting with President Miloš Zeman at the Kempinski Grand Hotel, February 7, 2023, Štrbské Pleso, Slovakia.
Bratislava – Today, the Slovak government expressed its regret over the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kušnírová in 2018, as well as the suffering of people after the communists came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948. Prime Minister Eduard Heger's cabinet did so on the occasion of the anniversary of both events. which fall on these days.
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Kuciak was shot and killed on February 21, 2018, according to investigators in connection with his investigative work. The murderer Miroslav Marček, who confessed to the crime in court, also shot his fiancee Kušnírová in the journalist's house. The courts have not yet finished making decisions in the case, which five years ago resulted in massive demonstrations and the resignation of then Prime Minister Robert Fico. Two people are still facing charges, including Marian Kočner, who is suspected of ordering Kuciak's murder. In addition to Marček, two other persons were legally convicted in the case.
The government also expressed the will of the state to provide journalists with such working conditions that they can carry out their work freely and without intimidation, as well as the conviction to persevere in the fight against corruption and organized crime .
Already on Tuesday, the memory of Kuciak and Kušnír was honored by the leading politicians of the country, as well as people at meetings.
The outgoing Heger cabinet, which did not wait for the vote of no confidence in the lower house in December, in connection with 75 ., on the anniversary of the takeover of power in Czechoslovakia by the communists at the time, he showed respect to all those who “risked their lives, personal freedom or professional careers to oppose the inhumane regime at home and abroad”. The government expressed its regret for the suffering of political prisoners and other groups of the population whose dignity the communist regime denied and also condemned the then practice of arbitrarily abusing the state's security forces against its own citizens.
