The lawsuit between former president Michal Kovac against erstwhile head of the Slovak secret service SIS, Ivan Lexa, over accusations that Lexa was involved in the kidnapping of the president’s son, has swung in favour of Lexa.
Now the Bratislava District Court has ordered the former president to apologise to Lexa for making claims that Lexa was involved in the abduction of Michal Kovac Jnr back in August 1995. Adding insult to injury, ex-president Kovac should also pay Lexa EUR 3,319 in compensation.
Kovac called the verdict ridiculous, saying he saw no reason to apologise to Lexa, who he says never disproved that he had not been behind the abduction. The case has been in the pipeline for 15 years and could be drawn out further as Kovac plans to appeal against the verdict.
The ruling comes shortly after a call was made recently by the KDH party in parliament to cancel the so-called 1998 Meciar Amnesties, which were granted to people believed to be involved in the abduction, offering them protection from investigation and liability.
If the amnesties are annulled, unlikely as 90 votes are needed and Robert Fico’s Smer-SD stands in the way, those suspected of being involved would suddenly have their protective cover ripped off and the kidnapping case could be properly investigated. Lexa was a close associate of Vladimir Meciar and is suspected of masterminding the whole kidnapping.
Kovac said the court ruling just goes to prove the bad state of the Slovak judiciary, saying verdicts are issued against the grain of common sense.
Bagpuss, I must congratulate you on your comment . So much more insight than the potato farmers and the language teaching staff that frequent this forum .
Just like to pick up on a point . Why do the KDH ( and others ) waste so much of parliament ‘s time on presenting a idea for any vote, when they know from the start it will fail ? It is quite madness to bring forward a new ‘bill’ when even your own side ( coalition partners ) will not even support it and you appear not to have done your lobbying . There is no consensus politics in this country and when in opposition , you just appear to oppose everything and delay laws that do any good that could be done to help justice or improve the situation to get those who have done wrong .
Until the country and the Slovak people ( even the news media ) grow up and actually do something progressive & productive, rather spin doctor every incident, news report , or think that any political critizing comment is a just a head butt and a personal attack , then nothing will ever change in this country. If the media stopped attending like little lambs, Robert Fico’s endless circus press conference’s, then perhaps he would start to take a different approach, other than believe he must always be the peoples brainless rottweiler .