Former three-time Prime Minister Róbert Fico and former Interior Minister Róbert Kaliák, who have dominated Slovakian politics for the past 15 years, were on Wednesday charged with organised crime offenses.
Kaliák was apprehended by police while fishing with his wife and sons near Bratislava on Wednesday morning.
Fico, who is still a member of parliament for the opposition Smer party, cannot be arrested without the legislature’s permission. They could each face up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
The charges against Fico and Kaliák, according to David Lindtner, a lawyer for Fico and Kaliák, pertain to crimes they allegedly performed as Cabinet members between 2012 and 2018, while Smer anchored successive ruling coalitions. Former President Andrej Kiska and Boris Kollár, the current speaker of Slovakia’s parliament, are among those accused of using confidential tax information to run smear campaigns against them.
Fico was accused of being the leader of a “criminal organization” that includes former police director Tibor Gapár and Slovak oligarch Norbert Bodor, according to the indictment.
He stood for president in 2014, while serving his second term as Prime Minister of Slovakia, but was defeated by Kiska by nearly 20 percentage points. Fico accused Kiska of “making his money from usury on impoverished people,” “misusing his charity for political goals,” and having “close ties to Scientology” during an exceptionally acrimonious campaign.
Fico and Kaliák allegedly acquired unlawful access to tax documents in 2017, and the prime minister, then in his third term, began referring to President Kiska as a “tax cheat.”
However, the 2018 murders of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak, 28, and his fiancée Martina Kunirová brought Fico’s premiership and government to an end. The release of thousands of private messages between Kuciak’s alleged killers and police, judges, and ruling-coalition politicians galvanized voters, propelling the anti-corruption Ordinary People movement to power in 2020.
