BRATISLAVA, May 4, (WEBNOVINY) — Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic believes that the security clearance issued by the National Security Office for Supreme Court President Stefan Harabin is a problem. “One of the security risks is his confidential relationship with gangland figures, which Harabin had and all Slovakia knows it, and it is a problem, indeed,” said Lipsic following the Cabinet’s session midweek. In 2008, when he was an opposition MP, Lipsic proposed the recall of Harabin, who was justice minister at the time, based on the inexplicable relations between Harabin and the criminally persecuted Kosovar drug dealer Baki Sadiki. “Concrete evidence was published showing that Harabin had not an accidental but a relatively friendly, jovial relationship with Sadiki,” Lipsic argued three years ago in his attempt to oust the minister.
“Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic should stop lying publicly, he should deal seriously with contacts with underworld representatives, whom Police President Jaroslav Spisiak labeled as such, while Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska was on friendly terms with them. He himself has a very close relationship with a person on friendly terms with a Mafia boss. I have never had such relationships and I do not have them now,” was the reaction of Harabin’s spokesman Michal Jurci to Lipsic’s statements. Harabin recommended that Lipsic ask MPs about joint photos from celebrations featuring alleged Mafia figures and a coalition MP and also inquire about the request of coalition partners asking for an amnesty for a racketeer.
Lipsic readdressed Harabin’s security clearance in reaction to the intention of SaS candidate for the post of director of the National Security Office Peter Paluda to look into some of the issued security clearances if elected to the post. Paluda said he plans to meet his legal duty and examine validity of National Security Office issued clearances, the lawfulness of which have been publicly contested if he is elected to the top post. He specified that he meant the security clearance issued to Harabin, former Prison Service Director Maria Kreslova, director of the Slovak National Library Dusan Katuscak and outgoing National Security Office Director Frantisek Blanarik.
SITA