The Christian democratic party KDH gave a press conference today with the attendance of party chairman Jan Figel, vice-chairs Palo Hrusovsky, health minister Ivan Uhliarik and interior minister Daniel Lipsic, to proclaim their intentions about how to handle the Gorilla affair from the secret service.
Lipsic made it clear that everyone mentioned in the Gorilla reports, which point to crony and corrupt practices between politicians and entrepreneurs, would be subject to investigation, and anyone “found breaking the law would suffer the consequences”, even if it were a member of his family.
Two KDH members are also mentioned in the reports, Stanislav Janota and Milan Krajniak, as they were active in the National Property Fund (FNM) at the time. After speaking to Krajniak, Lipsic said he had emphatically stressed his innocence. Lipsic already announced yesterday that a special team had been created at the Ministry of Interior to investigate the Gorilla reports, even though their authenticity can only be proven by ridding secret service officers of their oath of secrecy.
Last week economy minister Juraj Miskov (from the SaS party) motioned the recall of current head of the FNM executive committee, Anna Bubenikova, over the incriminating claims from the Gorilla reports, but the KDH will not provide its stance to her recall until after they have heard her side of the story.
Journalist Tom Nicholson, who has been investigating the Gorilla reports for around two years, said Bubenikova had broken down and cried when he first told her that he had the reports, which could imply guilt. The government will deal with the proposal to recall Bubenikova at its session tomorrow.
The general feeling in Slovakia is that nothing concrete will be done about the Gorilla reports, although a few sacrificial lambs might be thrown in to make it go away. This is partly because of a lack of political will (dirty washing and all that) and partly because the technicalities of the Slovak legal system will provide sufficient loopholes for the investigation to be thwarted.
With various bodies now investigating the Gorilla claims and the various ‘interests; involved, in his quest for justice interior minister Lipsic should maybe therefore take inspiration from David beating Goliath, but that was a much simpler feat.