Did the police in Slovakia orchestrate a coup? No, that's not true: There is no police coup going on in Slovakia. The National Criminal Agency (NAKA) indicted the director of the National Security Office, Roman Konecny; the director of the Slovak secret service agency, Michal Alac; his predecessor, Vladimir Pcolinsky, and other individuals based on charges regarding allegations of setting up a criminal group, abuse of power of a public official with intent to conceal or facilitate another crime and obstruction of justice.
"I want to assure you, nobody is stealing your country from you," said the Slovak caretaker Prime Minister Ludovit Odor during a press conference on August 18, 2023, after the National Security Council meeting. Slovak president Zuzana Caputova also denounced the coup narrative during the press conference.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @petraredova on August 17, 2023. The video is taken from a press conference held by a three-time former PM of Slovakia, Robert Fico, and his party Smer - SSD on August 17, 2023, on the day of the NAKA operation. This is how Fico opened the press conference:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a police coup in Slovakia.
(Translated from Slovak to English by Lead Stories staff)
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Aug 22 15:14:30 2023 UTC)
The operation performed by NAKA stems from a series of scandals that have earned the name of the "war in police" in Slovakia. After the three-term prime minister Robert Fico lost power in the 2020 elections, the police had their hands untied. They began investigating his party's abuse of police, judicial, and secret service systems for personal and business benefits. Affected parts of these state organs have been fighting back as more than a hundred persons connected to Fico's party have been accused of various crimes, and several have already heard their sentences.
The "War in police" is a conflict between NAKA and the Office of the Inspection Service that operates within the Slovak national police.
Police inspection is a special section of the Police Corps with competence for the entire territory of the Slovak Republic for the detection, investigation, and summary investigation of criminal offenses by members of the Police Corps and members of the Prison and Judicial Guard Corps.
These two different organs of the state police in Slovakia accuse one another of manipulating investigations on the crimes committed by people profiting off of the corrupt system Fico created, and they disagree on who is leading anti-corruption efforts in Slovakia.
The conflict has political repercussions, as opposing political forces support different parts of the police. Robert Fico, and his political offspring Peter Pellegrini together with Boris Kollar, stand behind the Police inspection team. On the other end, former Interior Minister Roman Mikulec, and former PMs Eduard Heger and Igor Matovic are politically supporting NAKA.
