The trial of a Vietnamese man who was allegedly abducted in 2017 was reopened by the Slovak National Criminal Agency, which launched an investigation into corruption connected to the abduction after a second suspect went on trial in Germany.
Vietnamese businessman Trinh Xuan Thanh sought political asylum in Germany prior to his abduction as he faced controversial allegations at home. He was accused of causing widespread damage to the oil company PetroVietnam through mismanagement. In 2017, he was allegedly abducted in Berlin before being shipped to Slovakia and then to Moscow in a government aeroplane. After his abduction, Thanh turned up in Vietnam, where he was imprisoned.
There have been suspicions that the Slovak leadership, including the then-Minister of Interior Robert Kaliňák (Smer-SD), knew about the abduction and approved the use of government aircraft.
The aeroplane also passed through Poland. When the Slovak Interior Ministry asked for permission to use Polish airspace, they said it was a state trip by the minister despite the minister not being on board.
The case significantly damaged German-Vietnamese relations. The first sentence in the trial was carried out in 2019 when one of the kidnappers received three years and three months in jail. German courts also clearly stated that it was a kidnapping. Last week, a trial with an alleged second kidnapper started after he was arrested when he returned to Europe after five years in Vietnam.
German prosecutors believe the kidnapped citizen has been taken from Berlin to the Czech city of Brno and then to the Slovak capital, Bratislava. “In order to secretly get Trinh Xuan Thanh out of the Schengen area, the kidnappers organised a meeting of ministers in Bratislava, which they wanted to exploit to smuggle the abductee into the Vietnamese delegation in order to avoid strict checks at the airport,” German prosecutors described the act. The Vietnamese delegation then travelled to Moscow in a Slovak government aeroplane. From there, they went back to Vietnam.
The Slovak Interior Minister agreed with the meeting. German Prosecutors are working with the version that Kaliňák did not know about the kidnapping and has simply been lied to.
After the case went public in 2018, Slovak prosecutors refused to investigate Kaliňák’s role. Attorney General Maroš Žilinka said this year that this decision was right. The case has been opened by the National Criminal Agency, which wants to closely cooperate with German authorities.
(Michal Hudec | EURACTIV.sk)
Source: euractiv.com
