Region: Slovak minister fired over bugging
By Beata Balogová
For the Slovak Spectator
The scandal involving the wiretapping of several Slovak journalists by military intelligence agents has cost Defense Minister Ľubomír Galko his job.
But as more information behind the secret monitoring program of the Military Defense Intelligence (VOS) has unfolded, government officials have learned that one of the journalists monitored on Galko’s watch was also wiretapped when the ministry was controlled by a nominee of the Smer party in 2007.
It has also emerged that the recent VOS operation involved wiretapping the head of TV news channel TA3 and two senior Defense Ministry employees, according to leaked documents obtained by Slovak media outlets.
“The whole story of wiretapping which is being uncovered today was also going on under previous governments,” said Prime Minister Iveta Radičová, who Nov. 22 asked President Ivan Gašparovič to dismiss Galko. “It is high time to reach an agreement and [start] an initiative over control mechanisms for the intelligence services.”
The prime minister will serve as Galko’s replacement until new elections are held in March 2012.
Radičová in her response also said it is now obvious that the “intelligence services have been doing everything possible – except what they were originally supposed to do and what their main role should be.”
The Pravda and Nový Čas dailies reported Nov. 21 that three reporters from Pravda’s domestic political department – editor Patrícia Poprocká and reporters Peter Kováč and Vanda Vavrová – as well as the head of TV news channel TA3, Michal Gučík, had been wiretapped by the VOS. The alleged wiretapping ended after the fall of the government in October, according to Pravda.
Galko’s Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS) has continued to back him. He argues that the wiretaps were performed legally and were intended to uncover criminal activity.
In Slovakia, military intelligence activities are performed by two organizations operating under the Defense Ministry: the Military Defense Intelligence (VOS), which conducts counterintelligence, and the Military Intelligence Service.
The request to apply what are known as “information technical devices” to bug journalists was signed by the head of the VOS, Pavol Brychta, and the wiretapping, which was reportedly intended to monitor the so-called “contact base” of three journalists, was approved by a judge. Brychta confirmed these details to the parliamentary committee for the oversight of military intelligence Nov. 22.
Brychta told the committee the journalists in question had participated in the leaking of sensitive information from the Defense Ministry, according to Peter Žiga, the Smer MP who leads the committee.
Opposition Smer party leader and former Prime Minister Robert Fico called the wiretapping program an assault on democracy and the foundations of the state, and suggested Galko had confirmed in live coverage that the information published by the media was genuine.
“It is one of the most serious abuses of power, to an extent that we don’t dare to dream of,” Fico told reporters Nov. 24.
It was later revealed that Smer-nominated former Defense Minister Jaroslav Baška admitted the VOS had also monitored at least one journalist during Fico’s government. In a media statement, Baška objected to comparisons made between the present affair and the wiretapping of Poprocká by the VOS in 2007, when the department was led by František Kašický, another Smer nominee, and Baška, who was deputy minister at the time. Poprocká, one of the Pravda reporters allegedly monitored by the VOS this year, was bugged in 2007 under Kašický when she worked as editor of the Žurnál weekly.
The VOS under Galko also used suspected leaks of classified information from the ministry as its justification for wiretapping journalists. Only a few days before the scandal broke, the Defense Ministry had filed a criminal complaint over suspicions that fraud had occurred during the government’s conclusion of a contract to buy a mobile communication system, MOKYS, which had cost Slovakia several billion Slovak crowns.
Just days after filing the complaint, Slovak newspaper editorial offices received anonymous information about the purchase of military trucks and military emergency vehicles. According to Galko, two of these newspapers, Pravda and Nový Čas, had “published stories about alleged illegal wiretapping of journalists by the military counterintelligence.”
Galko also said that on the one hand he understands the emotions and outrage of journalists, but “on the other hand, if there is suspicion that a crime has been committed, I am personally convinced there is no difference between a politician, or a minister for that matter, an employee, a businessman, a regular person or a journalist.”
Radičová said the Justice Ministry will review the decisions of the judges who approved the wiretaps, but added that the media did publish confidential information and violated the law by doing so.
Former general prosecutor Dobroslav Trnka has been tapped to lead the government probe into the affair.
Beata Balogová can be reached at news [at] praguepost [dot] com
By on 14/12/2011