The case of Hedviga Malinova (now Zakova) has been ongoing since August 2006 when she claimed she had been beaten in Nitra by two skinheads merely for speaking Hungarian on her phone.
In the latest development, she has decided to sue former interior minister Robert Kalinak for libel as he recently referred to her as a compulsive liar. News of the lawsuit appeared at the end of last week in Hungarian daily in Slovakia Uj Szo.
Robert Kalinak has reacted by saying he would be willing to take a lie detector test and take the stand in court in respect of the case details, while doubting if Malinova would be willing to do the same. Kalinak always stood fully behind the police when they claimed that her alleged attack had been contrived.
The case was turned against Malinova after she made enemies of the police, saying she had been put under excessive pressure to admit that she had made it up. Following this, the authorities filed a charge of perjury against her. In August 2010 Malinova’s lawyer filed for new evidence to be admitted, while a forensic appraisal of her blood stains and other evidence have been questioned.
The perjury accusation on Malinova still stands officially, but no case has been brought against her yet. The case has received a lot of attention and raised a lot of questions over how fighting for justice in the Slovak legal system might just not be worth the trouble. In true Hollywood style, though, she recently published a book on the case.