Three persons are suspected of possible preparations for the attack on the Barátság oil pipeline, one of them a Slovak citizen and two foreigners.
The two foreign nationals who were detained by the local authorities last week for possible preparations for a terrorist attack against critical infrastructure in the eastern part of the country have been expelled from Slovakia, Slovak Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok announced in a video published on social media.
The Minister of the Interior spoke about the case for the first time in a political program of the Slovak public media on Saturday, when he said that activity was detected in the eastern part of the country that indicates possible preparations for a terrorist attack against vital infrastructure. The minister then spoke of an organized group which
"he carried out field observations at the gas pipeline or the Barátság oil pipeline and not only in Slovakia, but also in Hungary."
In this connection, the Security Council of the Slovak government already made a decision on Thursday to strengthen the protection of the country's critical infrastructure, but the specific reasons for this were not yet disclosed.
Matus Sutaj Estok said in his video post on Monday that he started the case
the investigation is still ongoing, but the rapid measures have already been taken
which are aimed at preventing a possible terrorist attack of this kind.
The politician explained: three persons are suspected of possible preparations for an attack on a gas pipeline or an oil pipeline,
one of them is a Slovak citizen and two are foreigners.
According to a previous report by the Slovak public service news agency TASR, Pavol Gaspar, head of the Slovak Secret Service (SIS), mentioned the detention of two Ukrainian citizens on Tuesday in connection with the case.
"We deported one person to Hungary, and the other person was immediately handed over to the Ukrainian authorities as part of the deportation procedure"
- said the Slovak Minister of the Interior on Monday. He added: with the help of drones, the suspects carried out field observations at several facilities of the energy infrastructure, among others at Eustream's Nagykapos (Velké Kapusany) gas compressor station, at the Vojany (Vojany) power plant, as well as at railway stations and on the Slovak-Ukrainian border.
During the operation codenamed "Vostok", the Slovak authorities seized a number of news and other technical equipment used for surveillance, including thermal cameras, night vision and field-force jamming devices.
MTI
Front page photo: Slovak Minister of the Interior Matus Sutaj Estok - Photo: TASR - Martin Baumann / felvidek.ma
