Court in Slovakia upholds tax fraud verdict against former President Kiska

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — An appeals court in Slovakia on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that found former President Andrej Kiska guilty of tax fraud and gave him a suspended sentence.

At the same time, the regional court in the eastern city of Presov lowered the original suspended sentence from two years to one, dismissed a fine of 15,000 euros (about $16,300) handed to Kiska last year by the county court in the city of Poprad and cancelled a six-year ban on doing business.

The verdict is final but Kiska said on Facebook he will use an extraordinary challenge at the country’s Supreme Court to try to clear his name.

Kiska, 61, who pleaded not guilty, became the country’s first former president to be tried and sentenced.

The case dates back to 2014 when Kiska was running for president. At the time, he was a successful businessman-turned-philanthropist and a political newcomer.

According to the court, Kiska illegally included tax receipts from the presidential campaign in the books of his KTAG family company.

Such activities were not part of the firm’s business.

KTAG through Kiska’s associate Eduard Kuckovsky then claimed a tax return worth more than 155,000 euros (about $168,300).

Kiska beat populist then-Prime Minister Robert Fico in the race to become the country’s president for a five-year term in the largely ceremonial post. Kiska’s term in office was marked by clashes with Fico, whose leftist Smer, or Direction, party was tarnished by corruption scandals.

Kiska supported huge street protests that led to the fall of Fico’s coalition government in 2018 amid a political crisis triggered by the slaying last year of an investigative reporter looking into possible widespread government corruption.

Pro-West Kiska did not run for a second five-year term in 2019.

Last year, Fico and his Smer party won the parliamentary election and struck a deal with two other parties to form a new government.