{"id":8957,"date":"2023-04-13T15:38:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T15:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/slovak-court-fines-ecbs\/"},"modified":"2023-04-13T15:42:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T15:42:46","slug":"slovak-pm-urges-ecbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/slovak-pm-urges-ecbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Slovak PM urges ECB’s Kazimir to quit after bribery conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Robert Muller<\/p>\n

(Reuters) -Slovakia’s prime minister called on Thursday on the head of the country’s central bank, Peter Kazimir, to resign after he was convicted in a bribery case and fined 100,000 euros ($110,000).<\/p>\n

Kazimir, a European Central Bank (ECB) policymaker who is currently attending World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in the United States, denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The case concerns “suspicion of corrupt criminal activity in connection with tax audits against several commercial companies” when Kazimir was finance minister in a previous government, prosecutors said in February.<\/p>\n

Following Thursday’s ruling against him by a criminal court judge in the town of Pezinok, Kazimir should walk out of the National Bank of Slovakia’s doors and “never come back”, Prime Minister Eduard Heger said.<\/p>\n

“It is unacceptable for a person convicted of bribery by a court to hold the post of governor of this respected institution,” Heger told a news conference in front of the bank’s headquarters.<\/p>\n

The European Central Bank and the National Bank of Slovakia both declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The court’s ruling was made by a criminal warrant – based on evidence submitted during the investigation – and not in a full trial.<\/p>\n

The decision was for the crime of bribery, the court said, adding that it had not taken legal effect pending possible appeals.<\/p>\n

“Despite the criminal warrant, which has not even been delivered to me yet, I am innocent,” Kazimir said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “I have committed no crime and I have no doubt that I will defend myself before the judge at the main hearing or before the courts of appeal in Slovakia or in Europe.” <\/p>\n

He now faces a full trial after prosecutors said they had appealed the court ruling, which was delivered on April 3 and made public on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The special prosecutor’s office had charged Kazimir with a “corruption-related crime” in October 2021, but withdrew the charge last June pending a review. Slovak police revived the charge last November.<\/p>\n

A final conviction could cost Kazimir his position, which he has held since 2019 under a six-year mandate.<\/p>\n

Under Slovak central bank statutes, board members can continue to serve with a criminal record provided that record is clear of “final convictions for a deliberate crime”.<\/p>\n

Central bank governors are appointed and dismissed by the president and subject to approval by parliament.<\/p>\n

Kazimir was finance minister from 2012 to 2019 before being nominated as central bank governor by the leftist SMER party that lost power in 2020.<\/p>\n

($1 = 0.9074 euros)<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Robert Muller, Jason Hovet and Jan Lopatka in Prague; additional reporting by Balasz Koranyi in Washington; editing by Alison Williams, Mark Heinrich, Kirsten Donovan and Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n

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By Robert Muller (Reuters) -Slovakia’s prime minister called on Thursday on the head of the country’s central bank, Peter Kazimir, to resign after he was convicted in a bribery case and fined 100,000 euros ($110,000). Kazimir, a European Central Bank (ECB) policymaker who is currently attending World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-8957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3C0D5-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8957"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9421,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions\/9421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}