NGO Via Iuris will ask Prosecutor-General Jaromir Čižnár to examine the steps taken by his subordinate, Special Prosecutor Dusan Kovacik, during the investigation into the so called „Gorilla" file allegedly the largest case of political corruption in Slovakia's history. Via Iuris has taken this step due to new facts that emerged regarding suspicions of the potential sale of the key piece of evidence: the recordings from the safe house of the financial group Penta in Bratislava where one of Penta's partners was meeting politicians to discuss about privatisation and naming his people in key posts in state owned companies . Investigative journalist Marek Vagovic reported for aktuality.sk that former Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) counterintelligence director Lubomir Arpas and the financial group conceded they had done business together in the past via a company called Barkont. According to the Gorilla file, Arpas gave the safe house recordings to representatives of the financial group Penta in exchange of a sum of up to €132,776, which both parties denied. Arpas told aktuality.sk that following his departure from SIS, he was preparing health care analyses for the financial group. He claimed not to remember the overall sum he received via Barkont. Penta claims that it didn't hire Arpas as a health care expert but rather as a professionally educated expert on intelligence work. Arpas told aktuality.sk that shortly after he left the secret service, he was contacted by Penta co-owner Jaroslav Hascak with an offer. In late September 2006, Arpas together with his spouse founded the company Identita and a few days later signed an agreement on cooperation with Barkont that lasted a year and half. Arpas told the website that he was communicating only with Alojz Lorenc, the former director of the communist-era secret police StB, who worked for the financial group.
Via Iuris pointed out that police started the investigation into the case two times already this year, with the first investigation being shut down by the Special Prosecutor. "We consider the past investigation into this extraordinarily serious scandal to be absolutely inadequate," said lawyer Zuzana Čaputová, who collaborates with Via Iuris. "No individual has been charged within almost four years. We consider it necessary to ask the General-Prosecutor to examine the lawfulness of the past approach of Special Prosecutor who presides over the investigation into the Gorilla case," she said. In his reply to Via Iuris, the Special Prosecutor claimed that an investigator of the National Criminal Agency on June 25, 2015, issued a resolution on the launch of criminal prosecution over the abuse of powers of public official, potential compromising of confidentiality and bribery. According to Kovacik, the prosecution was launched also because of an excerpt from the Gorilla case regarding the sale of the recording. Prosecutor-General Jaromir Čižnár said he won't interfere at this stage with the investigation into the Gorilla case.
