Another Assassination Plot Against Premier Mečiar Has Been Announced

BRATISLAVA (SITA) -- The Slovak Police are dealing with information on an alleged assassination plan against Slovak Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar, spokesman for the Police Peter Ondera told SITA on Tuesday. No specific investigator has been appointed to handle the case yet. He refused to provide information on whether the Slovak Intelligence Service is involved in the case. Several media have disseminated information that there is an alleged assassination plot that would reward Prime Minister Mečiar's would-be assassin one million DM if the act is carried out by February 25, 1998. The information came from the Slovak Cabinet's press department director, Ján Krošlák, referring to information received from an anonymous Slovak embassy. Slovak Foreign Ministry Spokesman Milan Tokár said, "Mr. Krošlák said what he considered important to say. I do not have the right to correct him, neither to add information, nor to disseminate it further." To the SITA question whether he has any information on which embassy provided the information Tokár said, "Of course I have. It went through our ministry, but we do not consider it important." He also said only Krošlák can provide further information. Ondera refused to provide SITA with additional information and said that Interior Minister Gustáv Krajči said everything he was supposed to say at a press conference. Krajci told media that the reward for Mečiar's assassination is on until February 25, which is not accidental, as Krajči says, because it is concerned with the presidential elections. Krajči says the solicitor of the assassination is from Slovakia. However, it is not clear yet whether he/she comes from East or West, but the information should be taken very seriously. However, Ondera confirmed for SITA that all previous assassination alarms have turned out to be false. The first alarm emerged in 1992 during Mečiar's visit to Germany. The Prime Minister himself twice announced unmasked plots for his assassination at Movement for a Democratic Slovakia rallies. In 1994 Mečiar claimed that the police even captured the assassin, which contradicts what Ondera said today. In 1997 Mečiar alleged that the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) was preparing for his physical liquidation, but thanks to the intervention of KDH Chair Čarnogurský the plan was scrapped. Čarnogurský denied any real basis for Mečiar's words.