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Fast Money & Foreign Objects
- Investigative reporter Kuciak found shot dead on Sunday
- Kuciak worked on story linking mafia-run fraud to politicians
A woman places a candle in front of a portrait of journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kusnirova in the center of Bratislava on Feb. 27, 2018. Photographer: Vladimir Simicek/AFP via Getty Images
A story about the Italian mafia stealing European Union grants in Slovakia may have prompted the murder of an investigative journalist in the eastern European country last week.
Jan Kuciak, a 27 year-old reporter for Aktuality.sk, and his fiancee were found shot dead in their house near the capital city Bratislava on Sunday -- the first high-profile murder of a journalist since Slovakia’s 1993 independence. His investigative reporting work was the most likely motive, but authorities haven’t completely ruled out other leads, Police President Tibor Gaspar told Radio Expres on Tuesday.
“We’re focusing more on the scenario that it’s related to his journalistic work, specifically to the case” of Italian mafia activities, Gaspar said.
The killings rattled the small country of 5.4 million people and shined the spotlight on deteriorating media freedoms in the EU’s eastern wing. While Slovakia has so far avoided the type of declines seen in its post-communist neighbors Poland and Hungary, the relationship between the government and journalists has frayed after reports of numerous cases of nontransparent procurement and tax fraud by companies with links to politicians.
Kuciak had worked for “more than a year” on a story about the activities of Ndrangheta, an Italian organized crime gang, in Slovakia, including its ties to top politicians, according to Marek Vagovic, the head of the investigative unit at Aktuality.sk.
The outlet, jointly owned by Axel Springer SE and Ringier AG and where Kuciak had worked since 2015, plans to run a story that Vagovic said exposed involvement of mafia-run companies in public procurement and tenders for EU grants.
‘Unleash Hell’
The case is the fifth instance of a journalist being murdered in the EU in the past 10 years, according to Reporters Without Borders. In October, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed. She’d testified before a European Parliament panel about her work investigating the Panama Papers case concerning Maltese government officials.
Slovakia ranked 17th in the Reporters Without Borders 2017 Global Press Freedom Index of 180 countries. Poland fell to 54th place and Hungary slid to 71st.
Premier Robert Fico has pledged to crack down on graft, but no active politician has been sent to jail for corruption. Fico, who has frequently lashed out at journalists for what he said were biased stories, condemned the murder and announced a 1 million-euro ($1.2 million) reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. Kuciak recently also reported on the alleged tax-fraud case by a real-estate developer who rents Fico an apartment.
The country’s top law-enforcement official said he will “unleash hell,” if it’s proven that the murder was related to Kuciak’s work .
“Do we have a semi-mafia-run state here when journalists are murdered?” Prosecutor General Jaroslav Ciznar said Monday. If the killing was related to his work, “it would suggest something that needs to be stopped very quickly.”
Slovak Reporter's Assassination May Be Tied to Italian Mafia
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