SaS MPs Call Upon Defence Minister to Make Personnel Changes
Bratislava, April 4 (TASR) – Incoming Defence Minister Peter Gajdos (SNS nominee) should make three instant personnel changes, according to Defence and Security Committee members Lubomir Galko and Milan Laurencik (both SaS), who called upon the minister to embrace the changes at a press conference on Monday.
Galko (former defence minister/2010-11) and Laurencik say Military Intelligence (VS) director Lubomir Skuhra, Defence Ministry’s Department of Defence Policies general director Robert Tibensky and Internal Affairs Department general director Frantisek Blanarik should be terminated immediately.
The three individuals in question are “extremely untrustworthy people”, according to Galko, who maintained that the “VS is currently so untrustworthy for EU and NATO that, figuratively speaking, even cleaners from the other member states are unwilling to talk to our secret agents”.
Galko claimed that he was contacted by a number of military attaches from leading NATO and EU countries within the past four years and they relayed to him their deep concerns over the situation in Slovak Military Intelligence. “It’s unorthodox; military diplomats do something like this only when the situation is really bad, even dangerous,” said Galko.
“Let’s sum up how fares the Slovak Military Intelligence. Foreign cooperation – zero, international cooperation – zero, bilateral relations – almost zero. No one, maybe aside from Poland, talks to our agents at the moment even bilaterally,” claimed Galko.
SaS calls for the ouster of Tibensky, formerly in charge of the Military Intelligence Service, because of suspicions that he abused his powers of office as a military attache to Israel through the dubious renting of a state villa in Israel for personal profit. Furthermore, Galko says, Tibensky as a former secret agent is suspected of renting safe houses to himself. “Robert Tibensky is an extremely untrustworthy individual abroad,” he added.
“If Minister Peter Gajdos is to carry out his role as Defence Minister properly and to the benefit of the Slovak Republic, he needs a functioning internal affairs department. That of (former minister Martin) Glvac literally slept away the past four years,” Laurencik explained as to why Internal Affairs department head Frantisek Blanarik should be replaced. Laurencik added that Blanarik also served as an agent of communist secret service StB and thus is ineligible for his post.
“If he were tasked with drafting canteen menus at the ministry, we could tolerate that. But he’s still the internal affairs head to this day and comes into contact with confidential information, so he must be replaced unequivocally. He should have never become the head of internal affairs in the first place,” thinks Laurencik.
