Retrial in murder of Slovak journalist and fiancee begins

"If I hadn't managed to come to terms with it, we wouldn't be sitting here talking, If I hadn't come to terms with it, I'd have probably ended my life or I would have had to give up the job, I was helped a great deal by Jan's parents and Martina's mother. They told me I shouldn't blame myself. They said it couldn't have been prevented. The investigators and police officers who worked on the case told me the same thing,"

"I've had to learn to live with it and accept that I couldn't have protected him. He was supposed to be protected by the institutions. Jan filed a criminal complaint with the General Prosecutor's Office against Marian Kocner, and it did nothing,"

A third retrial has begun in the 2018 killings of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova, after two acquittals were overturned by Slovakia's Supreme Court for flawed evidence assessment. Families of the murdered couple continue to seek justice while officials warn a final verdict could take a year or longer. Aktuality.sk editor-in-chief Peter Bardy describes long-term grief, responsibility, and institutional failures, noting support from the victims' families and criticism that a criminal complaint filed by Kuciak against businessman Marian Kocner was not acted upon.

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