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On February 21, 2018, Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak, 27, and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová were fatally shot at their home in Veľká Mača. Their families alerted police after days of silence. Kuciak was shot twice in the chest, and Kušnírová once in the head, with no signs of struggle or robbery.
Jan Kuciak’s last work/words: “The story published Wednesday centers around Maria Troskov, a former Miss Universe contestant who was hired as an assistant to Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and previously co-founded a company with an Italian man living in Slovakia suspected of having ties to the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, one of the worlds most powerful organized crime groups.”
Journalist Information:
Name: Jan Kuciak
Age: 27
Gender: Male
DOB: 17/05/1990
Nationality: Slovakian
Last company worked for: Ukrayinska Pravda
Family: Jan left behind his parents and his siblings
Incident Information:
Date of incident – 21 February 2018
Location of incident – Velka Maca, Slovakia
Offense victim of: Assassination
Weapons included – Firearm
Jan Kuciak and his fiancée’s bodies were found by the police when they entered his house. He was shot twice in the chest, while his fiancée had been shot once in the head from the front/ Both were shot at close range with a 2 mm caliber handgun.
Suspect(s) Information:
Perpetrator Identified: Yes
Name: Marian Kocner
Proof of Targeting the Journalist: Andrusko informed the police he had then expanded the team to include Szoba and Marcek because he didn’t know how to kill a person himself. Although the direct order was to murder Kuciak, the assassins did not spare his fiancée as the two were spending the evening together at the house they had recently bought.
Reason for Killing: The Slovakian police stated that Kuciak had been murdered because of his work as an investigative journalist, and that the murder was a contract killing.
Progress of the Case: The alleged mastermind of the murder, businessman Marian Kocner, continues to evade justice. He was originally acquitted and subsequently found not guilty in a retrial which concluded in May 2023, qa decision which ARTICLE 19 and partners at Media Freedom Rapid Response strongly condemned at the time. Kocner’s case is now going to be heard in the Supreme Court of the Salvation Republic.