BRATISLAVA, August 25, (WEBNOVINY) — Wikileaks is shedding light not only on international relations, but also on Slovak scandals. According to diplomatic cables from the U.S. embassy in Bratislava, the attack on ethic Hungarian student Hedviga Malinova five years ago actually happened, writes Slovak Internet portal aktualne.sk. Malinova, today Hedvigova Zakova, however, was only “lightly beaten”, while she exaggerated the facts. “She tried to make her injuries worse, fearing that “it would not be enough” to get the case to the police,” translated Matej Kvocera on his blog in the weekly .tyzden. Wikileaks published the U.S. cables concerning Slovakia on Wednesday, August 24.
The case has been closely monitored also from abroad, as the attack was allegedly ethnically motivated. The victim testified that she was attacked by two men with shaved heads, probably skinheads, due to the fact that she was speaking Hungarian on her mobile phone. Tensions in Slovak-Hungarian relations escalated at that time, also due to politicizing the case, when the then Interior Minister and member of the SMER-SD party Robert Kalinak convened news conferences to announce results of the investigation, and officially commented on it.
It was exactly five years ago, on August 25, 2006, when Hedviga Malinova reported that she was attacked on her way to an exam at a university in Nitra. Shortly afterwards, she was accused of fabricating the story by the then Interior Minister Robert Kalinak, and the then Prime Minister Robert Fico, with Kalinak stating “it is beyond doubt that the case did not happen”. In May 2007, Malinová was charged with perjury and making false claims and those charges against her remain pending with the prosecutor’s office. Former General Prosecutor Dobroslav Trnka imposed an information embargo on the case, which is still valid.
SITA