Slovak police may have destroyed evidence in slain journalist case: lawyer

BRATISLAVA: Slovak police may have inadvertently destroyed evidence through negligence at the scene of the murder of an investigative journalist, his family´s lawyer said, in a case that prompted mass street protests and the prime minister´s resignation. Journalist Jan Kuciak, who had written about political corruption in Slovakia, was found shot dead along with his girlfriend at their home in February. They were both 27.As well as forcing the resignations of veteran prime minister Robert Fico, his interior minister and Slovakia´s police chief, the case also exacerbated worries about media freedom in ex-communist eastern Europe. No one has been charged with the murder, which a prosecutor has said was probably a contract killing. The Kuciak family´s lawyer, Daniel Lipsic, a former Slovak interior minister, said the two bodies had been moved without being examined by a forensic surgeon at the crime scene and this led to an incorrect initial pronouncement of the time of death.