An assistant to Freedom and Solidarity party MP Jozef Rajtár, who was identified by the court only as Filip R., has been found guilty of jeopardising trade, banking, postal, telecommunication and tax secrets and sentenced to a three year suspended sentence with a five year probation period by the Bratislava V District Court on Tuesday. Furthermore, Filip R. is required to apologise publicly to former Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák (Smer-SD) and is banned from working at institutions dealing with banking secrets for five years. However, the sentence is not yet valid and Filip R. will appeal against it.
"I respect the decision by the court, although I don't agree with it. We'll file an appeal," said Filip R, as reported by the TASR news agency. "We do not concur with the decision in question and consider a number of issues as disputable, naming them very clearly. Therefore, we lodged an appeal," echoed the sentiment of Filip's lawyer, Marek Para. Filip R. intends to forward the case even to the European Court of Justice headquartered in Luxembourg.
Freedom and Solidarity party MP Jozef Rajtár criticises the lawsuit, stating that the judge perceived the defendant as guilty from the very beginning. "She called Filip a perpetrator from day one," stated Rajtár, who disavowed the notion of him encouraging his assistant to commit a crime. Rajtár also refused to testify. "As a lawmaker, I have the right not to testify; the whole process has been a witch hunt trial since the beginning," he claimed, adding that the legal proceedings resembled those seen in third world countries. Rajtár finds it absurd for ex-minister Kaliňák to pose as the aggrieved party in public.
According to information stated in the Slovak media, Filip R., as an employee of a commercial bank, hacked the bank account of the former interior minister Robert Kaliňák and leaked banking transactions in Kaliňák's account and the account of former transport minister Ján Počiatek (Smer-SD) that exposed connections to businessman Ladislav Bašternák, a tax fraud suspect, which shook the political scene.
