EXILED IN BOSNIA: CORRUPT SLOVAK POLICE OFFICERS FIND COMFORT ABROAD

All indications are that life in the Balkan country is not proving much of a punishment for the two exiles. And thanks to the lengthy asylum process, they won’t be returning to Slovakia anytime soon.

Even so, with the September election of populist Robert Fico to another term as Slovak prime minister, a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code by the three-party coalition that he heads could make the situation back home much more conducive to returning.

Aerial view from mount Trebevic on Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo: Fotokon / Shuttertock

Flight to Bosnia

Jan Kalavsky and Marian Kucerka came to the public’s attention mainly thanks to recordings that Robert Fico played at press conferences while he was still an opposition politician,

These were since shown to have been manipulated, edited or just purposely rewritten in such a way as to harm a team of investigators around Jan Curilla, a well-known investigator of major cases at NAKA, which was looking into serious corruption and other crimes during the period of previous Smer governments.

Kalavsky and Kucerka, the men behind those doctored secret recordings, are both former high-ranking officers of NAKA who became caught up in corruption and abuse-of-position cases.

Kalavsky was sentenced to seven years in prison by the first instance court and is awaiting a decision from the appeals court. In the case of Kucerka, he has already been convicted and handed a prison sentence of 10 and a half years for corruption.

It was these two investigators who were key players in the beginnings of the war within the Slovak police force that is still going on today.

Kalavsky’s troubles began in May 2021, when the Office of Inspection – an internal affairs unit within the Ministry of Interior – accused him of leaking information. He was in charge of operatives at NAKA, so was in possession of high-level information concerning upcoming police actions, such as arrests and raids. According to the indictment and the verdict of the court of first instance, he traded that information with people with links to the criminal underworld.

After his indictment, Kalavsky became a police inspection informant and turned on his colleagues in the team around Curilla, whose conduct had fallen under suspicion by internal affairs. His indictment was dropped weeks later by the General Prosecutor’s Office, yet the office has still not dismissed the charges against the NAKA investigators to date, which are based on what experts say were the manipulated recordings made by Kalavsky.

In September 2021, Kalavsky was accused again, this time by his former colleagues from NAKA, who, according to the recordings, were his friends up until the last moment and did not want to believe that he had acted illegally. However, Kalavsky did not wait for the outcome of the trial. In September 2021, he fled to Bosnia, where he still resides today.

Slovakia has issued both European and international arrest warrants for him. In April 2022, he was arrested by Interpol Sarajevo, but the Bosnian State Court released him after a few hours. In August 2022, Bosnia decided not to extradite him to Slovakia.

Kalavsky has since applied for asylum in the country. Sarajevo-based lawyer Marjan Krešić, who specialises in asylum law, described this as a shrewd move. “It is almost impossible to get asylum in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Krešić explained, “but as long as the procedure lasts, you can get so-called subsidiary protection. Then it is legally impossible to extradite such a person.”

At first glance, it should not take the Bosnian authorities long to decide on a political asylum application for a person prosecuted and now convicted by a first instance court for corruption in an EU member state. However, Krešić pointed out that the situation is complicated by the migrant crisis afflicting large parts of Europe. “A few years ago? Yes, in a few months it would have been decided. But today these processes take at least a year,” he said.

Following Kalavsky, the second key actor in the war within the police, Marian Kucerka, also headed off to the Balkan country. He got into trouble because of bribes he took for failing to investigate VAT and tax fraud in the so-called Valceky and Naftari cases.

Kucerka repeatedly changed his plea, confessed to the crimes and then recanted his confession, almost accepted a plea bargain, but eventually stood trial and pled not guilty.

He remained in Slovakia after his first instance conviction, but then suddenly disappeared when his case was being decided by the State Court. He did not show up for the hearing on January 3 this year, sending only an apology and saying that he had suddenly fallen ill while abroad; he was, it seems, already in Bosnia.

The State Court upheld Kucerka’s guilty conviction in July and sentenced him to 10 and a half years in prison.

By then, however, Kucerka knew that it would be unlikely he’d be spending time in a Slovak jail anytime soon. On June 16, the justice minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Davor Bunoza, signed off on a decision that Kucerka would not be extradited to Slovakia, for identical reasons as Kalavsky.

A white SUV being driven by Jan Kalavsky towards a dwelling listed as owned by his wife. Photo: ICJK

Search for the hidden sniper

As long as Kucerka and Kalavsky are protected by the asylum procedure, they cannot leave Bosnia. They can, however, move around, shop or even do business.

The weekly Plus 7 Days, which belongs to the NMH publishing house of Slovakia’s Penta financial group, interviewed Kalavsky in 2022. In it, Kalavsky complained about his situation. “It’s not easy,” he told the reporter in response to a question about how he finances his life in Bosnia. “I work part-time in a private company. I get a retirement pension of about 400 euros, it’s a pittance. I have to earn a living. Slovak journalists are already talking about me selling my cottage. Why? Well, because I have nothing to put in my mouth.”

Either his situation has improved dramatically in a year or he wasn’t telling the truth back then. The Jan Kuciak Investigative Centre, in cooperation with journalists from BIRN, managed to track down Kalavsky in the small town of Trebinje, where he has a new house with a swimming pool surrounded by a large plot of land.

Tracking him down began with a mention on the regional station Herceg TV about a Slovak named Jan Kalavsky who had opened an electric bicycle rental business in the town of Trebinje.

Trebinje is popular with tourists due to its proximity to Dubrovnik and the border with Montenegro, and it has its own tourist board. It was on the organisation’s website that we managed to find a mention of the only e-bike rental business in the town. The rental company is run by Nikdem d.o.o. and its director is Kalavsky’s wife.

We found the company that allegedly rents e-bikes located on Filipa Visnjica Street. The dead-end street is lined on both sides with houses, both new and old. After a while it turns slightly, and we cross from the asphalt to a gravel road that leads to the last house.

Halfway there, an oncoming white SUV with Prague license plates pulled up beside us, being driven by a man whom we immediately recognised from the photographs. Upon introducing ourselves as journalists from ICJK, Jan Kalavsky replied in Slovak “Jesus Mary, goodbye!”, waved his hand and accelerated away.

The house where Kalavsky lives is at the end of the street. According to the cadastre, it is owned by his wife and, with a plot of 371 square metres and a swimming pool, its value is estimated at around 200,000 euros based on other prices in the area. Together with the adjacent plots listed as agricultural land, they own more than 2,100 square metres.

We didn’t stay long and after a few minutes turned back we came. The same white SUV rolled towards us again and Jan Kalavsky braked sharply. Although we tried to communicate with him, Kalavsky wouldn’t wind down his window, but just took a picture on his cell phone and headed back towards his house.

A moment later another car pulled up alongside us, this time it was the local police. After a brief discussion, the police took our names and let us and our Bosnian journalist colleagues go.

Before we left town, we stopped at the headquarters of the local tourist organisation, Go Trebinje, to explain that we had found no sign of any e-bike rental shop at the address of Jan Kalavsky. The staff member at the centre had also never heard of such a rental shop. When we showed her that Go Trebinje was promoting it on its website, she called the listed phone number. Jan Kalavsky answered the phone and shouted at her in vulgar Serbian to send the two Bosnians and “that agent of the American embassy” away.

Marian Kucerka (R) in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo: ICJK

Asylum rejected

In Sarajevo, our Bosnian colleagues managed to track down the second Slovak asylum seeker, the convicted Marian Kucerka, as he was leaving the local courthouse. He has been going there to testify via teleconference in other ongoing Slovak cases, in particular in the trial of the former special prosecutor, Dusan Kovacik.  

“I don’t speak English,” is how he rebuffed enquiries from the Bosnian journalists.

Despite several weeks of communication with multiple sources and informants, his whereabouts could not be ascertained. But his lawyer Ahmed Zilic spoke to us by phone. He confirmed that Kucerka’s asylum application had been rejected by the Bosnian Ministry of Security. The lawyer promised to arrange a meeting with his client, but it never happened.  

The Bosnian Ministry of Security also confirmed that, as with Kucerka, it had rejected Kalavsky’s asylum request. However, both Slovaks have appealed and their extradition to Slovakia cannot be decided until the court has ruled on that. 

The Sarajevo-based lawyer Krešić points out that if the Bosnian court decides to extradite Kucerka and Kalavsky, the justice minister, Davor Bunoza, has the power to overrule such a decision. However, even this power will only be relevant if the Slovak Republic still insists on their extradition in the meantime. 

Under new management

There are still international and European arrest warrants out for the already convicted Kucerka, so Slovakia is still searching for him, officially at least. However, the European and international arrest warrants for Kalavsky, who has so far been found guilty only by the first instance court, have been revoked.

“The court revoked the arrest warrants in October 2023 on the grounds that the defendant was actually residing at the given address abroad and was receiving all court mail at that address,” explains Jana Tokolyova, a spokeswoman for the Slovak General Prosecutor’s Office.

“The court proceedings took place in [Kalavsky’s] absence and ended with the pronouncement of the verdict. The first-instance proceedings have therefore already ended, the participation of him in them is not necessary and therefore the first instance court sees no need to search for him. The purpose of the arrest warrant is to ensure the participation of the person sought in the proceedings. The court of appeal will then decide for itself whether or not to issue its own arrest warrants,” she concluded.

In fact, the political situation at home has changed considerably since the Smer party of Robert Fico won the September 30 election and formed a new government with two other parties. This is Fico’s fourth government, the previous one (2016-2018) spanning the time when many of the high-level corruption cases, including those of Kucerka and Kalavsky, originate.

Both of their cases may now be affected by a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code in which the government of Prime Minister Fico wants to abolish the special prosecutor’s office.

In addition, the amendment also lowers sentencing rates. In the case of Kalavsky, which is still pending, he would now face between three and eight years instead of five to 12. Although Kucerka has already been legally convicted, if he were to return from Bosnia or be extradited, he would be able to file a motion for a retrial and challenge the fact that he was treated as a fugitive. Another novelty is that while the court would decide on this motion, Kucerka’s sentence would be suspended. Considering the sums he was found guilty of accepting in bribes (25,000 euros and 133,000 euros), he would no longer face a maximum of 10 to 15 years, but three to eight.

So, if the amendment passes, both Kucerka and Kalavsky could eventually get away with house arrest or even just probation instead of hard prison time.

Perhaps their stays in Bosnia are nearing an end after all.