Court: Judge Decides Not to Take Daniel B. Into Custody (2)

Banska Bystrica/Bratislava, April 19 (TASR) - A pre-trial judge of the Special Criminal Court (STS) released Daniel B. [name abbreviated due to legal reasons], who is accused of extremist criminal activity, on Saturday afternoon and decided not to take him into custody, TASR learnt from STS spokesperson Katarina Kudjakova on the same day. The decision is not final, as the prosecutor has filed a complaint against it. "The judge did not accommodate the prosecutor's proposal and released the accused D. B., as it was not clearly proven that the accused has violated the ban on publishing posts with hateful content after his release from custody in February 2025," explained STS spokesperson, adding that the criminal prosecution of the accused continues. The court's decision is not yet final, and the prosecutor has filed a complaint against it. The Supreme Court will have a final say in the matter on April 29. Police arrested the accused, Daniel B., on Wednesday, April 16. In the past, three arrest warrants had been issued against him. He was extradited from the United Kingdom to Slovakia under strict security measures at the end of January, and the prosecutor subsequently filed a motion to prosecute him in custody. Although the pre-trial judge of the Specialised Criminal Court originally acknowledged that the criminal prosecution was justified in January, he did not find grounds for remanding the accused in custody, and so Daniel B. was released. The Supreme Court later reviewed the prosecutor's appeal against this decision at the beginning of February and, although it acknowledged there were justified reasons to impose so-called preventive and flight-risk measures, it replaced custody with the imposition of several obligations and restrictions, including the requirement for Daniel B. to wear a monitoring bracelet. mf