Police Corps President Gives Testimony about Satorovci Criminal Gang

Banska Bystrica, January 10 (TASR) - Police Corps President Milan Lucansky spent an hour giving testimony before a senate of the Specialised Criminal Court in Banska Bystrica on Thursday regarding the Satorovci criminal gang that faces charges of multiple murders, TASR learnt on the same day. Lucansky confirmed that as a former director of the Office for the Fight Against Organised Crime back in 2010, he met with a man who claimed to be Ludovit Sator. Lucansky met the supposed head of the gang at a csarda at Komarom in Hungary, where Sator inquired about his options if he surrendered himself to the police after a decade of living on the run, citing fears for his life. Sator allegedly stated that he was concerned about "being knocked off by his own" people and his interest in co-operation with police wasn't discouraged even by a prospect of receiving a life sentence. Today, Sator is presumed to be deceased, even though his physical remains haven't been found. Lucansky maintains that he couldn't have apprehended the crime boss at the meeting. "There were certain accusations and attacks against me on the grounds that I should have apprehended him. I'm always pointing out that I was on the soil of a neighbouring state, where I had no jurisdiction, I wasn't armed and I don't speak Hungarian. I had no choice other than to refrain from such an intervention. I wasn't convinced it was Ludovit Sator. He looked completely different than in police photographs and other documents: young, athletic and with longer curly hair. He didn't appear nervous as one would expect from a man on the run. He spoke in a calm and relaxed manner, which was one of the reasons I wasn't sure. It would have been a great fiasco, if we had arrested a person on Hungarian soil, where we had no jurisdiction, and later it turned out he wasn't Sator," stated Lucansky. Lucansky also added that he noticed several individuals providing security to Sator in the pub. Lucansky was supposed to meet Sator at a follow-up meeting in Slovakia, but he left the police after the general election later that year. He forwarded the information about the case to his successor, yet the meeting has never materialised. Lucansky returned to police after 2012. The criminal gang centred around Sator operated in 1999-2010 in southern Slovakia, particularly in Dunajska Streda, Galanta and Komarno, but also in other regions of Slovakia and Hungary. Sator's right-hand man identified by authorities only as Zsolt "Csonti" N. faces charges of four murders. Among the most brutal murders committed by the gang was the hit on their own member Andrej Reisz, who was shot dead in 2006, with his body subsequently cut into pieces, ground and dumped into a river. mf/mcs