Supreme Court chairman Štefan Harabin has submitted an appeal against the decision of a five-member Supreme Court senate that has released from custody a man who was earlier sentenced to life for a double murder. “In my opinion, a gross violation of the law has taken place.
The charged person should in no case have been released from custody. [The verdict] was based on an erroneous interpretation of the Constitution and the law ... it's even at odds with a ruling of the Strasbourg court [European Court of Human Rights],” said Harabin. Harabin said that last year he launched disciplinary proceedings against judges from the senate headed by Peter Krajcovic for their actions in the criminal case of the Bratislava gang of Pito. According to Harabin, these judges in the Pito case threatened the criminal policy of the state – and there's is a continuing threat that persons charged for the most serious crimes might be liberated. Meanwhile, Justice Minister Tomas Borec also “expressed deep concerns that a person charged with first-degree murder has been released from custody”. The liberated man, Stefan Szabo, was sentenced to life imprisonment in October 2013 by the Specialised Criminal Court in Pezinok (Bratislava region) for the murder of two of his creditors.
