Former Slovak justice minister and former president of his country's Supreme Court, Stefan Harabin, has been charged for welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, the prosecutor's office announced on Monday.
Mr Harabin wrote on Facebook the day after the February 24, 2022 Russian invasion that he "would have done exactly the same thing as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin".
He was charged with "defamation of a country and a people" and also for having "apologized for a crime", said the spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Zuzana Drobova.
Mr. Harabin could be sentenced to up to three years in prison, according to the daily Dennik N.
The former minister said on Monday he was "proud" to have made this statement, which he maintains, being convinced that Russia has acted in accordance with international law, according to this daily.
Mr. Harabin, a 66-year-old former communist, also said in an interview broadcast by the Youtube channel that Russia had "a duty to liquidate all Ukrainian Nazis responsible for killing 14,000 children, women and elderly people in the Donbass since 2014".
Very critical of the EU, he had held the post of Minister of Justice in the populist government of Prime Minister Robert Fico (2006-2009), and had been President of the Supreme Court, before running unsuccessfully for the presidential election in 2019.
Slovakia, a European Union member country of 5.4 million people, has provided Kyiv with significant humanitarian and military aid since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
At the end of March, Slovakia had indicated that it had obtained from the United States an offer for weapons worth more than a billion dollars, at a reduced rate, in compensation for thirteen MiG-29 fighters promised to Ukraine.
05/06/2023 20:04:25 - Bratislava (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
