Police inspectors in action

The lead investigator on the case, Milan Šošovička, is himself under investigation, by the Interior Ministry's inspectorate. Let's forget for the moment about the as-yet-unresolved issues in that case, and about the fact the investigator works at the behest of the state prosecutors who supervised the probe. Let's suppose Šošovička did make mistakes, or so, from our unfamiliar angle, it seems to us. If other state prosecutors think the investigation failed, the Interior Ministry inspectors should indeed step in. But there is a problem: Why did the state prosecutors and the inspectorate leave untouched tens of other poorly investigated, obviously manipulated cases?

The most recent one is the affair of Kurdish doctor Yekta Uzunoglu. The manipulation in this case is striking. So far, none of the legal watchdogs has shown any interest. We shelve this issue, which received extensive media attention; 13-year-old police misconduct is a statute-barred matter.

Five years ago, the judge who acquitted journalist Tomáš Smrček ― who faced eight years in prison for disclosing classified information and whose prosecution was also a matter of manipulation ― said in announcing her verdict that if the prosecution had acted properly, Smrček would not have ended up in court. The police and state prosecutors did a very poor job. No action ensured. Police officers who helped bring Smrček to court were never prosecuted. The same scenario applies to the cases of…