The Supreme Court on Tuesday began dealing with appeals filed against the September 2020 ruling of the Specialised Criminal Court in the case of the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak.
Both controversial businessman Marián Kočner - who allegedly ordered the hit on Kuciak - and Tomáš Szabó - who was sentenced to 25 years for participating in the murder of Kuciak and for murdering businessman Peter Molnar in 2016 - were present at the session on Tuesday. Alena Zsuzsová - allegedly the first intermediary for Kuciak's murder - asked the court to carry out the proceedings in her absence.
In September 2020, the Specialised Criminal Court acquitted Kočner and Zsuzsová of charges since neither of them had been proven to commit the crimes that they had been charged with. Kočner was found guilty only of illegal arming, for which he was fined €5,000, with an alternative sentence of five months in jail if he fails to pay the fine.
The only two individuals who have been definitely sentenced in the case are Miroslav Marcek and Zoltan Andrusko. While the former was sentenced to 25 years for being the one who pulled the trigger, the latter agreed to a plea bargain, admitting to being an intermediary of the murder.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Maria Kolikova has claimed that she's ready to make use of an extraordinary appeal if the Supreme Court upholds the ruling of the Specialised Criminal Court from September 2020 in the Kuciak murder case.
Kolikova said she's aware that the public expects "an exemplary" verdict for such a "brutal crime", which, in the end, concerns the rule of law, freedom of speech and free access to information.
