Legacy of Murdered Journalist Kuciak Commemorated in Cities Abroad

Prague/Bratislava, February 21 (TASR-correspondent) - About a hundred people gathered in front of the Slovak Embassy in Prague to commemorate the legacy of late journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, with similar events taking place to mark the sixth anniversary of their murders in seven countries, TASR special correspondent in Prague reported on Wednesday. "Our enemies understand nothing but force. Money and power are their weapons. Our weapons are truth, love and perseverance. Perseverance because truth, love, evil and hatred are eternal. This struggle will never end," Slovak publicist Fedor Gal told the crowd. Also addressing the crowd via a letter was Czech investigative reporter and former associate of Kuciak, Pavla Holcova, whose letter was read out by her mother. "As recently as in the last year, we could have drawn solace from the belief that Jano and Martina laid down their lives for better Slovakia, so that the society would wake up and start staking a claim to a more just and fairer state. Today, however, we know that we've lost that battle. We can't stop fighting though. If we give up this fight, we would give up on the legacy of Jan and Martina," wrote Holcova. The Initiative for Decent Slovakia organised the commemoration events in dozens of Slovak towns and cities, as well as in Brno, Zlin, Luxembourg, Brussels, Paris, Oslo, the Hague, Copenhagen and Vancouver. Journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova were murdered on February 21, 2018, in their house in Velka Maca [Trnava region]. The most probable motive according to the police was Kuciak's investigative journalistic work. Three sentences were handed down in the case, with murder perpetrators Miroslav Marcek and Tomas Szabo serving 25 years in jail and Zoltan Andrusko 15 years. mf