NBS Governor's Lawyer: Judge Ignoring Supreme Court's Decision

Bratislava, December 3 (TASR) - Ondrej Mularcik, the lawyer defending Slovak central bank (NBS) governor Peter K. [name abbreviated due to legal reasons], who is facing prosecution for bribery, maintains that Specialised Criminal Court judge Milan Cisarik should have ended the trial when the Supreme Court reached its decision on new statutes of limitation. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Mularcik declared that the continuation of the trial after the Supreme Court's decision is unexpected and unusual. Fully expecting the NBS governor's bribery case to become subject to newly introduced statutes of limitation, the defence didn't even complete its closing speech at the main trail on November 29. Mularcik pointed out that he's already filed a complaint of bias against the judge. He also mentioned rumours circulating in the "media and lawyer community" according to which the judge is probably gearing up to reach out to the European Court of Justice with a prejudicial question as to whether the case, if it's related to VAT fraud, could be classified as concerning the EU's financial interests [and thus exempt from the new statutes of limitation -ed.note]. "I consider even an attempt to entertain such a prejudicial question to be depraved. If someone wanted to raise prejudicial questions at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, that would only prolong the trial by many long months, possibly even years," said Mularcik, adding that there's no evidence that could point to the NBS governor having anything to do with illicit VAT refunds or the financial interests of the EU. mf/df