On 21st February 2018, Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak was assassinated along with his fiancée Martina Kusnirova in their house in Velka Maca, south western Slovakia. The murder led to the largest protests in the streets of Slovak towns since the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and resulted in the resignation of the Prime Minister, Interior Minister and the Police Corps President.
"Despite his young age, he was as mature as a 45 year old experienced journalist," says editor Marek Vagovic, the former boss and a colleague of Jan Kuciak in the actuality.sk web portal. "His main advantage was that he had an analytical mind and was skilled in filtering information and connecting dots."
In his last article published after his death, Jan Kuciak was dealing with the business of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and its connections to high level politicians. Marek Vagovic again: "He was investigating how they abuse the system of subsidies for farmers and how they were trying to eliminate the competition."
In September 2018, the National Criminal Agency detained suspects in the murder case - the hitmen Tomas Szabo and Miroslav Marcek as well as the intermediaries Zoltan Andrusko and Alena Zsuzsova. In March 2019, the police charged the controversial businessman Marian Kocner, whose name has also appeared on the so-called mafia lists, with ordering the journalist's murder. According to the indictment, Marian Kocner ordered the murder, being annoyed with the journalist's reporting on his shady business deals. Zoltán Andrusko has already been sentenced to 15 years in prison after entering a plea bargain. Both Zsuzsova and Kocner pleaded not guilty. Marcek has admitted he shot the two victims. At the time of the proceedings, the journalist's father Jozef Kuciak told the media: "For me, justice will be done if it will no longer be possible for people like Kocner to be here. People who are able to gain so much power and political influence. I think that Kocner ordered the murder but was not alone in it. He consulted with somebody else and the question is whether we will find out with whom."
According to the analyst Grigorij Meseznikov, the murder of the investigative journalist has been playing a key role in the pre-election campaign. "Fight against corruption, clientelism, responsibility for all this distortions, deformations, wrongdoings, I think that this topic will be dominating and I think that demands for change will be the central point of the campaign."
The general election will be held on Saturday, 29th February.
