This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Slovakia’s law enforcement agencies are facing criticism of their investigation into the assassination of journalist Ján Kuciak after officers spent eight hours interrogating a reporter who had worked closely with him.



Kuciak, 27, and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, were shot dead at their home in February.

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Working in collaboration with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an English language publisher based in Sarajevo, Kuciak had been investigating the activities of Italian organised crime in the country.

On Tuesday, the Czech journalist Pavla Holcová, who had worked with Kuciak on his last reports, was interrogated by officers of the Slovakian National Crime Agency. Her phone was then confiscated using a warrant issued by a prosecutor.

Holcová is the founder of the Czech Center for Investigative Reporting, which has worked in collaboration with the OCCRP. She is based in Prague but had traveled to Bratislava to meet agents for what she said she believed was a friendly discussion about the investigation into Kuciak’s death.

“The actions of the National Crime Agency are hostile and seem to point to an investigation of reporters and not the murder of Ján Kuciak,” the OCCRP said in a statement. “We have seen this same behaviour by police in captured states and autocratic regimes. It does not belong in Europe.”

During the alleged interrogation, it is claimed an attempt was made to download information from her phone using specialist equipment. Holcová was allegedly threatened with a €1,650 (£1,440) fine unless she agreed to cooperate. When the download attempt failed, officers are said to have produced a prosecutor’s order which allowed them to seize it.

She believes the line of questioning adopted by officers was outside the scope of the murder investigation, and claims police wanted to know about OCCRP internal communication, her own working methods, and the intentions of other media reporting the issue.



Holcová said her phone did not contain any information about Kuciak that she had not already given to the police voluntarily. The OCCRP says it has already cooperated with the investigation by supplying relevant information.



“I agreed to go to Slovakia for the interview as a witness to the case and I was really trying to help,” Holcová said. “Instead, I ended up being interrogated for eight hours.”

The OCCRP has demanded the immediate return of Holcová’s phone and has hired lawyers to follow take up her case.

The Slovak National Crime Agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.