The head of the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), Marian Kotleba, who was found guilty of the crime of supporting and promoting groups aimed at suppressing fundamental rights and freedoms, and has now been sentenced to 4 year and 4 months in prison, was expecting a not-guilty verdict. "It seems to me, obviously, that there was a political order stating that this must come to an end and that Kotleba needs to be disposed of," he said. According to him, there's a plethora of reasons for filing an appeal against the verdict with the Supreme Court. Kotleba appealed the verdict so the Supreme Court will have to rule in the case.
The case focused on controversial cheques worth €1,488 handed down to poor families in 2017. According to the Special Prosecutor's Office and several experts that testified in court, the number 1488 is symbolic, being a combination of the numbers 14 (standing for the Fourteen Words of right-wing terrorist David Lane) and 88 ('H' being the eighth letter in the alphabet, and 88 therefore a symbol for 'Heil Hitler').
Special Prosecutor's Office (USP) prosecutor Tomáš Honz, in reaction to the guilty verdict, stated on Monday that Kotleba deserves such a mandatory sentence. "In my opinion, several facts came into play. The judge noted in particular that she feels that the people who received the cheques worth €1,488 were misused and dragged into the event. As the prosecutor indicated, this was a cynical and undue move. The event wasn't designed to provide help or money, it was literally meant to misuse these people in order to promote perverse fascist and Nazi ideas," said Honz. According to him, the verdict sends a message to all democratically-minded people in Slovakia that the courts and prosecution service will defend people who have become the victims of extremism, violence, racial hatred, fascism and neo-Nazism. If Kotleba loses the appeal, then he will have to give up his mandate as MP.
