As soul searching in Britain continues over Boris Johnson’s alleged proximity to a slice of cake, a different sort of rule-breaking has apparently been going on in Slovakia. The country’s former leader Robert Fico has been charged by police with leading an organised crime gang from his prime ministerial office.
The Slovak police’s ‘Twilight’ operation, investigating corruption at the highest level of politics, saw Fico’s former interior minister Robert Kaliňák taken into custody last week over fears that he would intimidate witnesses. Fico himself is likely to be arrested as soon as his parliamentary immunity is waived.
The allegations against the former prime minister and his right-hand man are shocking. It’s claimed that they used their power to discredit opponents, operating a mafia state that stretched into the police and tax office and in which oligarchy thrived.
Fico’s reign came crashing down in 2018 after the murder of a journalist investigating links between his government and the ‘Ndrangheta mafia group.
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