PG: No evidence that Slovakia took part in abduction

No evidence has proven that the Slovak authorities knowingly participated in the alleged abduction of Vietnamese national Trinh Xuan Thanh. At the same time it has never been confirmed that the man was transported via Slovakia or via a Slovak government aircraft, Prosecutor-General Maros Zilinka stated for TASR on Thursday.
"The fact that a government aircraft was used to fly a delegation of the Vietnamese interior minister to Moscow doesn't mean that an abducted Vietnamese national, or any other national for that matter, was on board the plane," said the PG, adding that the investigation was rather extensive. The case involved the questioning of 54 people, while another ten were questioned at the request of the German authorities. According to Zilinka, the case file contains approximately 4,000 pages.
The investigation was partly based on a ruling made by German courts, which concluded that it is unclear how the Vietnamese departed from Germany.
Zilinka, who earlier in the week attended a special session of the parliamentary defence and security committee in order to provide information regarding the investigation, noted on Thursday that he had explained to the MPs that the aircraft carrying the Vietnamese delegation to Moscow flew over Poland and Belarus. When the Slovak authorities asked Poland to authorise the flight path, they stated that the purpose was to transport the Vietnamese minister to Moscow. The same request and explanation was given to the Belarusian and Russian authorities, with all three countries authorising the request.
According to Zilinka, then Slovak interior minister Robert Kalinak was not on board. The PG explained that the day on which the Vietnamese delegation arrived in Slovakia, Kalinak was on holiday in Austria. As the Vietnamese minister asked him for a meeting, Kalinak indulged him, returning to Bratislava to meet his counterpart. When the meeting was over, Kalinak returned to Austria. Zilinka claimed that there is documentation to back this up. At the same time, the PG said that information that Kalinak's personal guard was on board has also been rebutted. "No Slovak national was on board, except for the crew," claimed Zilinka.
The former Vietnamese politician and ex-manager of a major state-run company Trinh Xuan Thanh was allegedly abducted from Berlin to Vietnam in July 2017. As the man was seeking asylum in Germany, he was officially protected by the German authorities. Germany investigated a possible infringement of international law by Vietnam. At the same time it looked into the possibility that the abduction was carried out by misusing a Slovak government aircraft.