BRATISLAVA, January 25, (WEBNOVINY) — President Ivan Gasparovic lifted the oath of confidentiality of the intelligence service SIS Director Karol Mitrik, who can now be questioned by investigators of the Gorilla graft case. “The decision of the head of state was delivered both to the investigator and the SIS governing body,” presidential spokesperson Marek Trubac reported.
Two days ago, the president received the position of SIS on the investigator’s request to lift the oath of confidentiality of the SIS director and asked for additional information to the investigator’s call. The request did not include the reason, scope, and validity period of the release from the confidentiality oath in accordance with generally binding regulations, the Penal Code, and the law on protection of classified information. The president sent the letter to the investigator on Monday and after he received the requested answers and additional information related to the request from the investigator, the president decided to lift the confidentiality oath of the SIS director.
Leaked intelligence service file code-named Gorilla documents alleged influence on Slovak politics by the Penta financial group. The extensive material released on the Internet before Christmas describes appointments of political nominees in state-run companies, kickbacks for privatization and the web of relations between politicians, tycoons and security services in the period 2005-2006. Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic created a specialized team that investigates the case. The team is composed of ten top-class criminal investigators from the Office for Combating Organized Crime, the Office for Combating Corruption and from the Police Inspection Office. On January 9, the investigator started criminal prosecution for the crime of establishing, preparing and supporting a criminal gang while the persons are mainly suspected of crimes of corruption and abuse of powers of a public official. The criminal prosecution is supervised by the Special Prosecution Office.
SITA