“We consider police intervention on the premises of our company, as well as bringing charges against co-owner Penta J. Haščák, to be unjustified and disproportionate,” the company said in a statement.
At the same time, she informed that Haščák took part in a planned interrogation on Tuesday, which was supposed to investigate an approximately five-year-old suspected criminal from alleged illegal trade in recordings from the Gorilla case. Penta said that after this interrogation, an accusation was filed against Haščák, which she did not specify. The company stated that Haščák had fully cooperated with the police during more than eight years of investigating the Gorilla case. Penta criticized the intervention of armed police officers on its premises as “a disproportionate and unjustified demonstration of force.”
In addition to one of the richest Slovaks, Haščák, according to the portal, the police also accused the former director of counterintelligence of the Slovak Civil Secret Service (SIS), Ľubomír Arpáš, and his wife, who also worked for the secret service in the past.
Five million for recordings
Aktuality.sk wrote that Arpáš brought from the SIS recordings from wiretaps of the apartment, where Haščák met with politicians and officials and where commissions or bribes were discussed. He allegedly sold the recordings to Haščák in such a way that Arpáš and his wife founded a company that received 194 thousand euros (five million crowns) from one of Haščák’s companies for fictitious analyzes and consulting services. In the past, Arpáš claimed that he handed over information and analyzes to the former head of the StB secret police in communist Czechoslovakia, Alojz Lorenc, who worked with Penta.
Penta also stated in a statement that Haščák “fundamentally rejects any illegal actions” in connection with Arpáš’s activities and “will take all legal steps to protect himself”.
The Aktuality.sk server also published a video, where the police take Haščák to the headquarters of Penta. He was unable to answer the journalist’s question about the accusation he was actually facing. “I’d like to know what happened,” he said.
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Slovak media reported that police officers were brought to Haščák to the Penta building in the afternoon. According to published photos, he had no handcuffs on his hands. Earlier, police officers armed with submachine guns entered the headquarters of the financial group.
Gorilla
A recording of about 39 hours from wiretaps in the Gorilla affair leaked to the Slovak media last year. In 2018, it was seized by the Slovak police during house searches of the prosecuted businessman Marian Kočner.
The Gorilla corruption affair broke out at the end of 2011, when documents called Gorilla leaked to the Internet, which, according to unconfirmed information, were prepared by the SIS on the basis of wiretaps of an apartment in the wider center of Bratislava. The case concerns suspicions of bribery of politicians and senior officials by Penta in exchange for its influence on privatization and the operation of some companies. Penta denies the wrongdoing in the case from the beginning.
The investigation of the Gorilla affair was overseen by special prosecutor Dušan Kováčik, whom the police accused in November this year of corruption, abuse of power and other crimes, according to available information, and the court sent him into custody. For example, the former head of the Gorilla investigation team has complained in the past that Kováčik did not approve some planned actions.
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