Opposition: We Didn't Receive Any Evidence of Threats at Committee

Bratislava, January 24 (TASR) - Opposition members of the parliamentary committee for supervising the activities of Military Intelligence have criticised the lack of evidence and new information on security threats and protests at Friday's special session. "Unfortunately, I must say that what was said at the committee in no way corroborated with evidence the accusations that have been made publicly for some three or four days now. There has been no evidence whatsoever that the intelligence services of foreign countries are trying to do damage to critical infrastructure here. Even such accusations have been made by governing coalition politicians. We asked about this explicitly today, we didn't receive any evidence to confirm this accusation," committee head Tomas Valasek (Progressive Slovakia/PS) told reporters. "It hasn't been proven that there is an organised group operating in Slovakia with the purpose of organising a coup d'état," he added. The committee chief considers it to be important to have a safe space where the opposition and the coalition can tell each other what is going on and operate with facts and evidence. He convened the committee after there was talk that Military Intelligence is also providing information in relation to possible threats. Opposition committee members Juraj Krupa (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) and Lubomir Galko (Independent) said they hadn't learnt anything new at the committee. Galko considers it a farce to discourage people from taking part in the protests. He hopes that in the future someone will be held accountable. Coalition member of the committee Marian Salon stated that both Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (both Smer-SD) and Military Intelligence head Juraj Stefanka clearly informed and indicated the content and form of the evidence. Salon stated that opposition members of the committee didn't do anything to request additional information. "It is certainly not conceivable that in the process we are in now, they should talk about exactly specific operations, who gave what, to whom, where. I think that could be subject to obstruction of the investigation even then," he stated, adding that responsible authorities are certainly taking action. am/mcs