New criminal investigations into Gorilla case launched in Slovak

The investigation team launched new criminal investigations into the Gorilla case, a corruption allegation in state-run companies of Slovak, reported local daily "Pravda" on Monday. The three newly launched criminal proceedings covered one associated with a crime of accepting bribes, and the other two with indirect corruption, the investigation team confirmed. The crimes, codenamed Gorilla, are related to several commissions of state companies to the tune of hundreds of millions of Slovak crowns, said Pravda, quoted Marek Gajdos, leading investigator of the investigation team as saying. However, Gajdos refused to provide any further details. Meanwhile, the police have halted probes into the alleged crimes surrounding the scandal that leaked shortly before Christmas 2011. These were also associated with corruption of senior state representatives. The Gorilla case is a political corruption scandal in Slovakia, which surfaced with the leakage of file of the alleged secret-service wiretapping of senior politicians holding talks with representatives of the Penta financial group at a safe house during Mikulas Dzurinda's second government. The file points to many cases of high-profile corruption across the political spectrum, mostly in the form of the conditions for the government privatisation and public procurement programmes.