Jaroslav Svěchota, plk., JUDr. (September 13, 1941 – November 8, 2004) was the former Deputy Chief of the Slovak

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For i ...

and

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

. Together with Ivan Lexa, Svěchota was one of the key figures in the controversial reign of Prime Minister

Vladimír Mečiar Vladimír Mečiar (; born 26 July 1942) is a Slovak former politician who served as the prime minister of Slovakia from June 1990 to May 1991, June 1992 to March 1994, and again from December 1994 to October 1998. He was the leader of the Movemen ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

in the mid-1990s and was an important figure in numerous trials concerning the Secret Service both as witness and defendant. According to newspaper SME he was considered the "gray eminence" of the Slovak Secret Service under Ivan Lexa. All police investigation and trials of Svěchota were stopped after his death.

Career

Svěchota studied law and began his career in the communist Secret Service as an agent, working for the headquarters in

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

. Before 1989, he also worked in the Office for protecting democracy (). His career in the Slovak Secret Service skyrocketed after Ivan Lexa became the Head of the Service. In 1995 Svěchota became the Head of Counter-Intelligence and later the Deputy Chief of the Service, directly under Lexa. After the change of government and after

Mikuláš Dzurinda Mikuláš Dzurinda (; born 4 February 1955) is a Slovak politician who was the prime minister of Slovakia from 30 October 1998 to 4 July 2006. Dzurinda is the founder and leader of the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK) and then the Slovak Democr ...

's first government came to power, Svěchota left the Secret Service and became an attorney.

Involvement in Slovak mafia

Svěchota was known to often meet with the boss of Bratislava mafia in the mid-1990s, Miroslav Sýkora. Rumors suggest that it was Svěchota who gave Sýkora the order to assassinate Róbert Remiáš. He also knew Sýkora's successor Peter Steinhübel a.k.a. Žaluď and had good understanding with Mikuláš Černák, boss of mafia in

Banská Bystrica Banská Bystrica (, also known by other #Etymology, alternative names) is a city in central Slovakia, located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Greater Fatra, Veľká Fatra, and t ...

and allegedly the boss of Slovak mafia at that time.

Investigations and trials

After the Head of Slovak Secret Service Vladimír Mitro delivered an address to the Slovak Parliament, investigations of numerous crimes committed by the Secret Service in the past start, most including Svěchota. He spent several months in prison in 1999. Shortly before his death he was found guilty of embezzlement of 276,000

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

and he was sentenced to 2 years in prison. Svěchota, however, appealed to the Highest Court of Slovakia which failed to decide the case before his death. All trials were stopped afterwards. He gave testimony in the cases of Kidnapping of the Slovak President's son,

Assassination of Róbert Remiáš The assassination of Róbert Remiáš took place on 29 April 1996, in Karlova Ves, Bratislava, Slovakia. Remiáš, an ex-police officer, was one of the key figures in the trial against Slovak Information Service in the case of the kidnapping of th ...

and many more.

Health

Svěchota had serious health problems for several years. He was hospitalised in Kramáre Hospital in

one month before his death and he was supposed to undergo a spine surgery. In the past, Svěchota has survived several heavy

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

s and also

clinical death Clinical death is the medical term for cessation of blood circulation and breathing, the two criteria necessary to sustain the lives of human beings and of many other organisms. It occurs when the heart stops beating in a regular rhythm, a condit ...

. He was observed by journalists to look very unhealthy when attending his numerous trials at courts.

References

External links