Video leaked to Slovak media this week showed Slovak businessman Marián Kočner, accused of murdering journalist Ján Kuciak, installing a hidden camera in the office of the former Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka. In the video, Trnka was shown helping him with the installation.
Kočner is a controversial Slovak businessman and one of four people accused of last year’s murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kušnírová. According to investigators, Kočner could be the one who ordered the murder.
Police records prove that Kočner had Kuciak surveilled and then blackmailed the journalist after Kuciak became interested in Kočner’s business activities and political ties.
The video shows footage directly from the hidden camera from the moment of its purchase to its installation in the office of Trnka. Kočner and Trnka set up the camera so that the prosecutor, as well as his visitors, would all be recorded.
The damaging video leaked to Slovak media and spread across social media. The Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK), which published the video, is the first Slovak center of investigative journalism. It was founded by a group of Slovak journalists in January less than a year after the murder of the journalist to preserve the legacy of Kuciak and his work on political and corruption cases.
ICJK says it obtained the video anonymously from a source within the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The record is dated January 1, 2000. However, according to ICJK, the information could be distorted, and the video might actually have been taken several years later.
Starting in 1999, Trnka became deputy prosecutor general, and then in 2004, he served as prosecutor general.
Trnka and Kočner, both seen in the video, are being investigated in Slovakia in cases related to corruption. According to police wiretaps, they knew each other and worked together, but Trnka denies the authenticity of the incriminating recordings.
