For the first time, Minister of Justice Koen Geens (CD&V) has responded to the death of Jozef Chovanec in a police cell in Charleroi. “It makes me sick,” said Geens The appointment, where he was allowed to say very little about the matter. He calls it one of the darkest episodes of his political career.
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The death of Jozef Chovanec has been troubling the emotions in our country and in Slovakia for several weeks. The man was taken off a plane at Charleroi in 2018, then injured himself in a police cell by repeatedly hitting the wall with his head, and during the police intervention that followed, a police officer sat on his chest for 15 minutes while his colleagues. dance and one of them even brings a Hitler salute. The Slovak died a few days later.
The case was not brought to light until two years later, and since then there has been a lot of criticism of the way in which the courts in our country have dealt with the case. The then Minister of the Interior Jan Jambon and the then bosses of the federal police had to come and bring it out in the room.
Who we have barely heard in the case is Minister of Justice Koen Geens (CD&V). Wednesday night got in there The appointment change in. Geens called the case one of the darkest episodes he has had to deal with in his political career. “I don’t sleep on this. I am sick of it ”, said Geens.
The Minister of Justice was hardly allowed to say anything about the content. “I want the public prosecutor’s office to try to provide answers first. For me, the essence and the question for the public prosecutor is whether it should not have been passed on to the police top. I hope the parquet has a good answer there, because it is a very important question. It also remains a mystery that if the third man of the police is on duty, it will not get higher in the hierarchy. ”
As Minister of Justice, he could not have changed anything, says Geens. “The parquet is completely independent. Things like Chovanec’s are very difficult for myself and my cabinet because we are so powerless. ”
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