House Committee Fails to Adopt Resolution on Kosice Incident

Bratislava, November 25 (TASR) - The parliamentary human rights committee on Monday failed to adopt a resolution on the incident that resulted in charges being pressed against a Kosice police officer for killing a detainee, as not enough MPs voted in favour of it. If the resolution had passed, the committee members would have called on Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) to submit a proposal for systemic measures to improve the prevention and elimination of police brutality. They would also have expressed their concern about systemic faults that have contributed to frequent occurrences of police brutality. Opposition representatives at Monday's committee session again spoke about systemic errors in connection with the incident in Kosice, and MP and committee chair Lucia Plavakova (Progressive Slovakia/PS) pointed to other cases of police brutality. The opposition MPs asked about measures that the Interior Ministry intends to come up with in this regard. They also demanded a timetable for introducing body cameras. Interior Ministry State Secretary Lucia Kurilovska at the session denied that there was a systemic failure in the given case. At the same time, she informed the MPs about measures that have been taken by the Interior Ministry. She also announced plans to adjust the use of psychological tests for police officers and to increase the number of psychologists. In addition, she spoke about the installation of cameras and the introduction of body cameras. ko/df