Three Slovak highest political representatives are meeting the Prosecutor General (PG) Jaromír Čižnár on Monday to discuss the issue of the alleged kidnapping of the Vietnamese national Trinh Xuan Thanh via Slovakia. The meeting was initiated by Čižnár, who invited President Andrej Kiska, Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko (Slovak National Party/SNS) and Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) with the intention to prevent the politicisation of the case and ensure independence and legality when it comes to clarifying the matter.
Last week, the media brought reports that the Berlin-based investigators were convinced that the ex-communist official Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was kidnapped in the German capital in July 2017, had been transported to his homeland through Slovakia by a Slovak Government aircraft and that the Slovak government was involved in the kidnapping. The Slovak interior ministry reacted that it did not take part in the kidnapping intentionally. At the weekend, Denník N, which cooperates with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing the documents from the Prosecutor's office, wrote that the Vietnamese delegation, which was on an official visit in Slovakia at that time, consisted of four members on arrival, however, there were twelve members on leaving Slovakia. The daily also cited the testimonies of anonymous policemen, which indicate that the then Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák might have been involved in the kidnapping. Any policemen will be able to provide their testimonies to the investigators as soon as the current Interior Minister Denisa Saková rids them of the need for secrecy.
Kaliňák refused these accusations and said that the policemen were imaginary. MP Robert Fico, who was Slovak Prime Minister at the time, accused the media, NGO, opposition and President Kiska of artificially creating another wave of attack against the government and its largest SMER-SD party.
