Ján Kuciak

Having worked closely with Kuciak and therefore being familiar with Kočner’s profile, Vagovič said that he’d never thought Kočner would be capable of ordering a hit, and was shocked when the prosecutor informed him that Kočner has been charged with ordering the murder. ‘I’d always considered him as a poser who is only pretending to be a tough guy so that others would be afraid and get out of his way,’ said Vagovič. Kočner at this time was already in custody after being charged with having committed financial crimes.

All revelations concerning the case were made two days before voting in the Slovakian presidential election took place on 8 March 2019. It was difficult to predict if the news would influence the polls, but the results revealed a decline in support for the government-backed candidate. It is also clear that, since the murders, support for Fico’s party, Direction – Social Democracy (Smer-SD), has fallen dramatically. Vagovič said that politicians from the Smer-SD persist in attacking the media and accusing them of organizing support for a coup.

But the police and the prosecutor have proven professional and responsible in their conduct. ‘In September 2018, charges were brought against the assassins; and in March 2019, Kočner was charged with ordering the murder,’ Vagovič said. ‘I strongly believe that [those responsible] will be brought to justice and be sentenced with high penalties.’

In the meantime, the families of Kuciak and Kušnírová are struggling to cope with the loss. Jozef Kuciak, Ján’s brother, told the OCCRP that he can barely recall the events of the past year, that it all feels like a bad dream. And one year after the tragedy, Zlata Kušnírová continues to visit the house in Veľká Mača. ‘Even the last time, when I visited Veľká Mača, I took one of Martina’s dirty socks from the laundry,’ she told the OCCRP. ‘I wanted to hold it tight, close to me, to have a piece of Martina with me for at least a little moment.’

After Jan and Martina’s murder, their families didn’t realize that grief and despair were only the beginning of an entirely new chapter in their lives. The couple’s parents, together with Jan’s former colleagues, have since been fighting for justice for their children and for Slovakia. The investigation into the case took almost two years and, as Aktuality.sk editor-in-chief and Jan’s former employer Peter Bardy said, it would have been impossible to undertake without the institutional support of the EU and Europol.

The months following Jan and Martina’s murder were extremely dramatic for Slovaks. After Fico’s resignation, the government took on the task of running the country until March 2020, when Igor Matovič became the new prime minister. A year earlier, Zuzana Čaputová had won the presidential election and promised to support the fight against organized crime and corruption, making the search for the perpetrators of the murder her top priority. It seemed that the days of these murderers might now be numbered.

Vladimir Turan, the prosecutor assigned to the case, submitted a file with dramatic testimonies of the perpetrators, as well as data from Kočner’s phone, which resulted in the sentencing of 15 years in a maximum-security prison for Andruskó, 23 years for Marček and 25 years for Szabó, all three directly involved in Jan and Martina’s murder in one way or another. Meanwhile, Kočner and Zsuzsová have been accused of being behind the murder and masterminding it.

The prosecutor’s file included a shocking testimony from Kočner’s former associate, Peter Toth, who confirmed that he had kept Jan and other Slovak journalists under surveillance on Kočner’s orders. Toth himself used to work as an investigative journalist and, in his twenties, became renowned in Slovakia for stories uncovering corruption cases. As a result of the data from phones submitted by Toth, another scandal was discovered by the police, which resulted in the biggest police operation in Slovakia, performed in March 2020, that culminated in 13 judges being detained. And a couple of months later, three judges were arrested for corruption scandals in Zilina. According to data obtained by the police, Kočner was involved in some of these cases.

Despite all these efforts – and to the major disappointment of the public – on 3 September 2020, at the special court in Pezinok, the judges decided to acquit Zsuzsová and Kočner of the charges. They deemed the evidence presented to be insufficient to link them directly to Jan and Martina’s murder.

Jan’s parents left the courtroom after hearing the verdict, as did Kušnírová, Martina’s mother. ‘I expected more from our justice system,’ Jozef Kuciak, Jan’s father, told the media. Kušnírová said that both families were utterly disappointed by the verdict.

Many media outlets, NGOs and political figures expressed dismay and discontent after the ruling. However, the court stated that the evidence was only ‘circumstantial’. The prosecutor appealed the ruling, and the Supreme Court is expected to gather in early 2021 to hear the appeal.

Both Kočner and Zsuzsová are already in prison for their involvement in other cases. Kočner is sentenced to 19 years for corruption in the TV Markiza case, while Zsuzsová was placed in custody on 5 September 2020. She has been charged for the attempted murders of two prosecutors, Žilinka and Šufliarsky, and a lawyer and former politician, Daniel Lipšic. Slovakian media reported that the police had seized two machine guns meant to be used in these planned murders. This information came from Miroslav Marček, who has already been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the Kuciak case. Marček, who has been collaborating with the police for several months, told the police he received the guns from Andruskó.

July 2023 update

In June 2021, the Supreme Court overturned the original verdict acquitting Kočner and Zsuzsová, which led to a retrial. But on 19 May 2023, the special court in Pezinoc acquitted Kočner on the charges of conspiracy to murder due to lack of evidence. However, the court found Zsuzsová guilty of masterminding the murder and sentenced her to 25 years’ imprisonment and ordered her to pay compensation of €160 000. Press freedom organizations issued a statement condemning the verdict and calling for justice.