Slovak News Back to the news
SDKU-DS: Kalinak No Longer Legitimate Interior Minister for Us
Friday 08 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, January 8 (TASR) - Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak is no longer a legitimate minister for the main opposition party SDKU-DS, the party's law, order and justice team leader Lucia Zitnanska said at a press conference in Bratislava on Friday.
According to former justice minister (2006) Zitnanska, SDKU-DS is calling on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to dismiss Kalinak over the scandal over the (mis)placing of explosives in the luggage of an unwitting Slovak travelling from Poprad airport (Presov region) to Dublin. The botched police operation was been a blow to Slovakia's reputation abroad, and SDKU-DS wants Fico to dismiss Kalinak in order to restore Slovakia's reputation.
"I think Kalinak has lost any kind of credit to remain on his post. Thursday's press conference was the last drop. Rather than admitting his failure and apologise to the citizens of Slovakia, he blamed everybody else - starting with Opposition, one policeman and the police sniffer dog will be blamed in the end," said Zitnanska.
SDKU-DS MP and former defence minister Martin Fedor pointed out that after the scandal with the explosives Slovakia has gained worldwide attention as a country where things are hidden and lied about. "This may be one of the last chances when the minister can restore such a mistake, right now we can still save our reputation," thinks Fedor. He views the decision of the Slovak police to include unsuspecting civilians in training not as a mistake, but as a system failure. The same is applied to the fact that nobody misses explosives for several days, which are boarded on plane and flown abroad. "The only failure of an individual we can see is that of Mr. Kalinak," concluded Fedor.
The Opposition is willing to negotiate on further steps concerning this case next week. In connection with this, Zitnanska pondered whether it makes sense to initiate extraordinary session of Parliament in order to initiate a no-confidence vote in Kalinak five months before the elections.
Head of the Border and Foreigner Police Tibor Mako resigned from his post because of the explosives scandal in the wake of the botched security test, Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said at a press conference on Thursday. "Tibor Mako asked to be released from his post and I've accepted," said Kalinak.
Due to a security test that went awry, an RDX explosive was inadvertently smuggled from Poprad-Tatry airport on an airplane to Dublin. According to Kalinak, the entire incident was caused by a 'stupid human mistake', as the police officer responsible made a number of blunders. Meanwhile, the investigation of the case conducted by the Interior Ministry inspection is pending. Kalinak also decided to stop any further security tests of similar kind, and intends to find an alternative training procedure.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
