BRATISLAVA, January 10, (WEBNOVINY) — Czech truck driver Zdenek Pekara who was detained in Turkey in December 2010 in violation of an international police cooperation agreement on a so-called controlled shipment will get 25,000 euros in compensations from the Slovak Interior Ministry. The agreement on compensation was achieved on Tuesday. “It is an act of solidarity, which the department had been awaiting from the Turkish party. The Slovak General Prosecution Office as well as well as the European Union’s judicial cooperation unit EUROJUST confirmed that this was a properly coordinated operation of several European states’ security bodies within the scope of international law,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Gabor Grendel. “Although it is without any doubt now that the incident was not caused by Slovak police, I welcome this financial compensation as a gesture of the Slovak Republic,” stated Zdenek Pekara.
Slovak police launched an international operation against foreign drug mafia group in December 2010. A monitored shipment of a chemical substance used in heroin production from Slovakia to Turkey, which was controlled by the police, resulted in Turkish authorities seizing the truck and detaining its driver. He was released after the incident, but was banned from entering the country. According to information from SME daily, Pekara was degraded to work at a warehouse with lower salary as the company he worked for specialized at shipments to and from Turkey. He suffered a heart attack in May 2011.
In 2010, the Slovak side asked the Turkish authorities for an explanation of the thwarted operation when it was agreed that the Turkish police would track the truck so that it would be possible to identify buyers and producers of heroin with the use of the transported substance. Heroin is then supplied back to Slovakia and western Europe. They received no proper explanation.
SITA