Opposition Leaders Believe Kiska's Account on Land Case at This Stage

Opposition Leaders Believe Kiska's Account on Land Case at This Stage

Bratislava, February 20 (TASR) – Chairman of ‘For the People’ party and ex-president Andrej Kiska hasn’t been questioned by police yet regarding two videos that are supposed to implicate him in shady land deals, TASR learnt on Thursday.

Kiska urged the police to take action without delay.

The ex-president also maintains that experts concurred that the video released on Wednesday (February 19) has been “ludicrously cut” and doctored and declared that Smer-SD is to blame.

OLaNO leader Igor Matovic hasn’t seen the video yet, but intends to do so and also wait for a reaction from ‘For People’ vice-chair [formerly OLaNO] Veronika Remisova. Matovic believes that the implications stemming from the video are serious. “If there is any shred of doubt that things didn’t transpire as Andrej Kiska has claimed, it would pose a serious problem,” Matovic said about post-election co-operation with Kiska as an individual.

One of Progressive Slovakia-Together leaders Miroslav Beblavy told journalists that he hasn’t viewed the video yet, but received an explanation from Kiska. “It all comes down to whether the video is authentic or cut in a purpose-built manner. At this stage, I have no reason to impugn what Mr. Kiska avers,” he added.

SaS MP Karol Galek perceives the leaking of videos as part of a dirty election campaign and emphasised that the veracity of the recording should be investigated by law enforcement and not politicians.

Chairman of Christian Democrats Alojz Hlina (KDH) claimed that he needs to form his own opinion of the videos and also hear out Kiska’s account first.

In the past, then-president Kiska was locked in a legal battle with dentist Jan Franc over Franc’s plot of land that Kiska had purchased from a third party in 1999 without Franc’s knowledge. Kiska lost the lawsuit in 2018. Judge Miroslav Radacovsky ruled that Kiska purchased the land in good faith and couldn’t have known it had been acquired unlawfully.

The two videos imply that Kiska had been aware he was buying illicitly acquired land and Michal Suliga, the court witness, was covering for him during the trial.

Kiska denounced the first video as slander and lodged a criminal complaint over it.