Ján Kuciak (17 May 1990 – 21 February 2018) was a Slovak investigative journalist. Kuciak worked as a reporter for the news website Aktuality.sk and focused mainly on investigating tax fraud of several businessmen with connections to top-level Slovak politicians. He and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, were assassinated on 21 February 2018 in their home in Veľká Mača, Galanta District, Slovakia.
Kuciak was the first journalist murdered in Slovakia since the country's independence. The murders caused shock and disbelief throughout the country, sparking mass popular protests and a political crisis, with the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico on one side, and President Andrej Kiska and opposition parties on the other. The crisis culminated on 15 March with the resignation of Prime Minister Fico and his entire cabinet, followed by the forming of a new cabinet led by Peter Pellegrini.
According to the prosecution's indictment, businessman Marian Kočner tasked Alena Zsuzsová with arranging Kuciak's murder, and she in turn tasked Zoltán Andruskó, who ordered Tomáš Szabó and Miroslav Marček to carry out the murder. Andruskó, a businessman from Chotín, admitted to ordering the murder, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Marček, a former soldier, admitted to shooting Kuciak and Kušnírová and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His cousin Tomáš Szabó, a former policeman, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for participating in the murder.
The case is ongoing. On 20 May 2025, the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic decided that the case will be tried again by a new panel of judges at the Specialised Criminal Court.
Background
Ján Kuciak was born on 17 May 1990 in the village of Štiavnik in Bytča District. He studied and graduated with a master's degree in journalism at the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra, where he continued his studies as a postgraduate student in the field of mass media communication. While working on his PhD, he also held a teaching position at the same faculty.
He later started to work for the newspaper Hospodárske noviny, before taking up a position in the editorial office of Aktuality.sk, primarily as an investigative journalist. He particularly focused on cases of tax evasion, including ones related to the then-ruling party Direction - Social Democracy headed by PM Robert Fico. He had previously written about companies with unclear ownership as well as suspected systemic embezzlement from European Union funds.
The most prominent subject of his articles was businessman Marian Kočner, who first became known in Slovakia in 1998 due to his unsuccessful attempt to take over the private television news network TV Markíza with the help of the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS). In his June 2017 articles, Kuciak described several discrepancies in the halted investigation of a case involving Kočner and the suspicious transfers of his hotels in Donovaly, which resulted in a €8 million VAT refund in 2010–2012. On 5 September 2017, Kočner phoned Kuciak and confronted him over his work, using profanities and saying that he would start gathering damaging information about Kuciak and his family. Two days later Kuciak filed a complaint against Kočner, but was not spoken to about the issue by police until over a month later. Kočner was accused of tax and insurance premiums evasion in the Donovaly case in late September 2017.
In a December 2017 article, Kuciak described suspicious activity in a legal case in which Kočner's firm IIDH was suing pharmaceutical distribution company Unipharma and its subsidiary for €45 million. In response, the Ministry of Justice launched an investigation into the actions of the judge involved in the case. In the last article published before his death, Kuciak wrote about suspicious transactions involving Kočner in the Bratislava apartment building Five Star Residence. According to the article, 19 apartments were sold to and from five different firms fully or partially controlled by Kočner at least twice, raising questions about possible tax-related criminal activity.
Assassination At the time of his death, Kuciak was 27 years old. He lived in the village of Veľká Mača, about 65 km (40 miles) east of the capital Bratislava. On the morning of 26 February 2018, police were called to his home by family members after the couple had not answered phone calls for more than four days. Kuciak's fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, usually spoke with her mother on a daily basis. Her mother stated that she last spoke with her daughter in the afternoon of 21 February. When she tried to contact her again that evening, there was no reply. The family stated that Kušnírová's cellphone appeared to switch off three days later, probably due to a dead battery.
Police entering the house found Kuciak and Kušnírová shot dead. Kuciak had been shot twice in the chest, while Kušnírová had been shot once in the head from the front. Both were shot at close range with a 9 mm caliber handgun. There was no evidence of a struggle and nothing appeared to have been stolen. Police found two empty cartridges at the crime scene as well as several unused bullets. The murders were initially believed to have been committed some time between 22 and 25 February, but were subsequently suspected to have taken place in the evening of 21 February.
Reactions The murders sent shockwaves throughout Slovakia. The day after the news broke, gatherings were held around the country in tribute. Candles were lit at the Slovak National Uprising Square in Bratislava and in front of the editorial office of Aktuality.sk, where Kuciak worked. Similar gatherings were also organised in the Czech cities of Prague and Brno. President Andrej Kiska stated that he was "shocked and horrified that something like this happened in Slovakia". Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament, called on Slovakia to launch a thorough investigation, offering international support if needed, adding that "the European Parliament will not rest until justice is done". Ringier Axel Springer, the parent company of Aktuality.sk, called the murders a "cruel assassination", vowing to redouble their journalistic efforts.
Protests
On Friday 2 March, up to 25,000 people gathered in Bratislava to commemorate the murdered couple. On 9 March, protests were held in 48 towns and cities in Slovakia as well as 17 other cities around the world. In Bratislava alone, about 60,000 people held a protest march, the biggest turnout of any demonstration since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The protests were endorsed by several universities in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, teachers, school associations, artists and non-governmental organizations. 21 universities cancelled afternoon lectures to allow students and employees to attend the protests.
Two days after Prime Minister Fico's resignation, an even larger demonstration was held in Bratislava with over 65,000 people participating under slogans such as "Enough of Smer" and "Early elections". Former Speaker of Parliament and ex-presidential candidate František Mikloško made an impassioned speech during the protest saying that "the revolution started by the parents has to be finished by their children". He argued that only twice in the history of post-war Czechoslovakia have popular protests managed to make the government resign: in November 1989 and now, adding that "when somebody tries to abuse their power in the future, they should remember March 2018 and the mass protests". Mikloško's speech was accompanied by the ringing of keys, reminiscent of the Velvet Revolution in 1989.
Investigation In a press conference the same morning, Slovak Police President Tibor Gašpar stated that the murders "likely have something to do with [Kuciak’s] investigative activities". The Government of Slovakia offered €1 million for information leading to the murderers. Prime Minister Robert Fico made the announcement during a press conference with Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák and Police President Tibor Gašpar. During the press conference, they displayed packs of banknotes amounting to one million euros, which the government promised to give to anyone who came forward with relevant information that could help explain the murder. Furthermore, Prime Minister Fico announced the creation of an inter-agency task force involving employees of the General Prosecutor's Office, Special Prosecutor's Office, the Interior Ministry and the SIS in attempting to solve the case.
At the time of his murder, Kuciak was working on a report about Slovak connections with the Italian organized crime syndicate 'Ndrangheta. He had previously reported on organized tax fraud involving businesspeople close to the ruling Smer-SD party. On 28 February, Aktuality.sk published Kuciak's last, unfinished story. The article details the activities of Italian businessmen with ties to organised crime who have settled in eastern Slovakia, and have spent years embezzling European Union funds intended for the development of this relatively poor region, as well as their connections to high-ranking state officials, such as Viliam Jasaň, a deputy and the Secretary of the State Security Council of Slovakia, or Mária Trošková, a former nude model who became Chief Adviser of Prime Minister Robert Fico. Both Jasaň and Trošková took leave of absence on the same day, stating that they would return to their positions once the investigations were concluded.
Initial arrests On 1 March, four days after the discovery of the murders, heavily armed units from the Slovak Police Corps' elite National Crime Agency (NAKA) raided several locations in eastern Slovakia, in the cities of Michalovce and Trebišov. Antonino Vadalà, an Italian businessman mentioned in Kuciak's report, was detained along with his two brothers Sebastiano and Bruno, as well as his cousin Pietro Caprotta and several other men of Italian origin. All the detained men were released from custody after 48 hours, due to lack of sufficient evidence. On the day of the arrests, General Prosecutor Jaromír Čižnár ordered the police to give no further updates to the press or the public regarding the investigation. Vadalà was rearrested on 13 March, this time due to an international warrant issued by the Italian police. According to the arrest warrant, Vadalà is suspected of drug trafficking as well as money laundering. Among other offences, he was said to have been planning to import large quantities of cocaine from South America. On 23 April, Slovakia approved Italy's request for extradition.
As a result of their investigation into the murder, the Slovak police stated that Kuciak had been murdered because of his work as an investigative journalist, and that the murder was a contract killing.
Arrests made in September On 17 September 2018 the prosecutor published a facial composite (identikit) of a person who allegedly could have been involved in the assassination, or may have information about people closely connected to the crime. The prosecutor added that the murder had been carried out by professionals as a contract killing. A man from Veľká Mača named Marek claiming to know the person from the image was subsequently questioned by police. He said it was his former colleague Miroslav Č., then living in Ostrava, who told the media that he did not understand why he was on the identikit.
On 27 September 2018, heavily armed NAKA forces arrested eight suspects in Kolárovo. Three of them, Tomáš Szabó, Miroslav Marček, and Zoltán Andruskó, were charged with the murder and other crimes, and the others were released. Minister Denisa Saková announced that around 200 individuals had been questioned in relation to the murder. The attorney of Ján Kuciak's family, Daniel Lipšic, commented that "the scale of the investigation, even with help of Europol and other foreign investigative organisations, was unprecedented".