The Killing of a Journalist

When an investigative journalist and his fiancée are brutally murdered and Slovakia’s police fail to question the prime suspect, protests for justice erupt and a leaked case file reveals corruption so rampant, democracy itself may not survive.

On the night of February 21, 2018, investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, both just 27 years old, were brutally murdered in their home. It was the first targeted killing of a journalist in Slovakia＇s history, and shocked citizens protested on a scale not seen since the fall of communism. Kuciak was well known for covering questionable financial connections between politicians and "elite" business tycoons, namely millionaire Marián Kocner. When police failed to meaningfully investigate the prime suspect, journalists mobilized the public. Leaked files, Kuciak＇s posthumous reports and civic outcry led to scandalous discoveries of decades-old corruption networks involving Kocner and the police chief, high-ranking bureaucrats and the prime minister himself. But when prosecution efforts turn up honey-pot schemes, paid assassins and dubious political appointees instead of delivering justice, democracy itself may not survive in one of the European Union＇s most jaw-dropping corruption scandals.