SaS Files Criminal Complaint Over Secret Service Report

Bratislava, January 22 (TASR) - The opposition SaS party has filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor-General's Office over the suspicion of the misuse of a public official's powers, which they believe might have occurred with respect to the confidential report by the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS), either during the process of its drafting, ordering or the way in which it was put to use at Tuesday's special emergency House session on the ouster of the government, SaS representatives announced at a press conference on Wednesday. SaS underlined that SIS has been collecting information on civil activities and public protests, which have been peaceful, non-violent and constitute the legal use of rights guaranteed by the Slovak Constitution. MP Ondrej Dostal (SaS) pointed out that the SIS report contained three sets of information. The first concerned civil protests and their organisers, their mutual connections and alleged or real contacts with some opposition political parties. "The second set regarded criminal activities, recent attacks on critical infrastructure, the [recent] hacker attacks on the land registry office and threats addressed to schools and other information. And the third set dealt with [last year's] assassination attempt on the prime minister, the perpetrator of the assassination attempt and his views, stances and previous activities," said Dostal. According to Dostal, the report didn't contain any confidential information, with the exception of an email exchanged between protest organisers. "A civil initiative claimed to have written the email. The email contained a plan for non-violent protests aimed at preserving the democratic character and the rule of law in the Slovak Republic. That's not anything that could be characterised as 'extremism'," he stressed. SaS is concerned that SIS probably violated the law by presenting such information from a private email. "We urge the law-enforcement bodies to investigate this," added Dostal. In this context, SaS called on SIS head Pavol Gaspar to resign. mf/df