Far-right leader charged again

Marian Kotleba, the Chairman of the parliamentary far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), was charged on Monday with expressing "sympathy for a movement leading to the suppression of fundamental rights and liberties", linked to the distribution of three charity cheques worth €1,488 two years ago. "The number 1488 is known and used by extremists, being a conjunction of the numbers 14 (meaning the Fourteen Words of right-wing terrorist David Lane) and 88 (H standing as the eighth letter in Latin alphabet, with HH serving as an acronym for the Nazi salute 'Heil Hitler'," said Special Prosecutor's Office spokesperson Jana Tokolyová on Monday. The Specialised Criminal Court and later also the Supreme Court dropped the same case earlier due to what was identified as a procedural defect that violated the charged person's rights of advocacy. Kotleba did not comment on the new charges.