The Guardian

‘They can’t kill us all’: Slovakian journalists defiant after murders

Colleagues of Ján Kuciak, killed after investigating mafia links, vow to continue his work
A woman places a candle in front of a portrait of Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kusnirova in the center of Bratislava on February 27, 2018. The body of Jan Kuciak, a 27-year-old reporter for the aktuality.sk news portal owned by Axel Springer and Ringier, was discovered alongside that of Martina Kusnirova at their home in Velka Maca, 65 kilometres (40 miles) east of the Slovak capital Bratislava on February 26, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / VLADIMIR SIMICEK / Getty Images

At 6.30am on Monday, Peter Bárdy, the editor-in-chief of aktuality.sk, a Slovakian news website, received a phone call to inform him that one of his employees had been murdered. Ján Kuciak, a 27-year-old investigative reporter, and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, had been found shot dead at their home in Vel’ká Mača, 40 miles (65km) east of Bratislava.

“It was the worst moment of my career, to tell 27 people from my editorial team …,” Bardy checks himself, “to tell 26 people from my editorial team that one of them, Ján Kuciak, is dead.”

Peter Habara, an editor at , was in the office early that morning too. “It’s impossible to comprehend – my wife and I were making plans to visit Ján and Martina

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