Prosecutor halts police inspection attempt to examine investigators' phones
The supervising prosecutor refused to allow a search of mobile phones belonging to members of the Veritas team investigating the Kajúcnik case. The devices must be returned to their owners.
Prosecutor halts police inspection attempt to examine investigators' phones
The supervising prosecutor Dalibor Považan rejected a request from the police inspection to examine the mobile phones of a group of investigators and one prosecutor. They are at the centre of one of the sharpest disputes within Slovak criminal law. Považan warned that such an intervention could become an unlawful search for evidence. The matter was reported by the newspaper SME.
The police inspection, which operates under the Interior Ministry and is headed by Matúš Šutaj Eštok, the leader of the Hlas party, is dealing with suspicions of misconduct by police officers. Its Veritas team requested access to data on phones as part of an investigation called Kajúcnik, which concerns charges from March 2026. These relate to alleged coercive practices and manipulation of witness testimony during an investigation that was said to involve investigator Ján Čurill.
Instead of the inspection obtaining court approval, it must, according to the ruling, return the seized devices to their owners. Požavan, in his written statement, questioned not only the legal basis of the request but also its unusually broad scope. The investigators argued that all data on the phones should be examined because they could not know in advance what might be relevant.
The prosecutor rejected this approach, stating that it constitutes a so-called "fishing expedition", which in legal terminology is an unlawful search without a specific objective. At the same time, this undermined one of the inspection's key arguments, which claimed that some devices could have been used to coordinate the activities of an organised group. However, Požavan pointed out that at least two of the seized phones are models that came on the market only at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, long after the alleged conspiracy could have been realised.
By that time the Specialised Prosecution had already been abolished as part of the Robert Fico government's criminal law reform, and the accused members of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA) were reassigned to other positions with no direct professional ties.
In justifying the request, the inspection also cited intelligence information according to which prosecutor Michal Šúrek allegedly tried to delete cloud data after his detention. Defence lawyers dismissed this information as unsubstantiated, saying that Šúrek does not use cloud storage. They also disputed claims that publicising the identity of one of the detained persons before their arrest signalled a leak from within the police.
Požavan concluded in his ruling that none of the claims presented justified such an intrusion into privacy and personal data.
The Kajúcnik case is part of a broader dispute over anti-corruption investigations led by a group of detectives known as the Čurillovci. Since Robert Fico's return to office as prime minister at the end of 2023, his cabinet has abolished the Specialised Prosecution and NAKA, and several high-profile corruption cases under the supervision of prosecutor Šúrek have come under new control. These concerned high-ranking state officials, police chiefs and political figures, many of whom had links to Fico's Smer party or his previous governments.
Supporters of the investigators claim that the current actions constitute retaliation for their previous work, whilst the inspection argues that it is investigating alleged misconduct during these investigations.
The case has previously encountered procedural obstacles. Courts refused the remand detention of several suspects and expressed doubts about the prosecution's arguments. The General Prosecution also separately examined complaints about the legality of certain actions by the inspection.
In connection with the case, investigators allowed access for lawyer Peter Kubin after almost four months, having previously excluded him from the defence on the grounds that he could be called as a witness. The prosecution had previously described this decision as unlawful.
Source: The Slovak Spectator