Slovak officials face mounting calls to resign over explosives

PRESSURE IS growing on senior Slovak officials over the botched security test that allowed a passenger to fly from Poprad-Tatry airport to Dublin carrying high-grade plastic explosives.

A Slovak parliamentary committee is poised to question interior minister Robert Kalinak about the fiasco, while opposition leaders are demanding the resignation of transport minister Lubomir Vazny and a former premier wants police chief Jan Packa sacked.

Vladimir Meciar, who was prime minister in the 1990s and now leads the HZDS party in the ruling coalition, said if Mr Vazny had been in his party “he would have been fired long ago”.

He saved particular scorn for Mr Packa, however, saying he was ultimately responsible for the security system at Poprad-Tatry airport that allowed a policeman to forget about one of two explosive samples that he had placed in a passenger’s luggage as a test for a sniffer dog.

“I don’t understand the tolerance that the interior minister shows towards [Packa] . . . I believe he should not be considering things, but should sack him right away,” Mr Meciar said.

Mr Kalinak has insisted that only the dog handler was to blame for the debacle, and border guard chief Tibor Mako is the only person to have resigned over the incident, which saw electrician Stefan Gonda carry 46 grammes of explosives on a Danube Wings flight to Dublin on January 2nd.

Gardaí briefly arrested Mr Gonda last Tuesday and recovered the explosives from his Dublin flat.

Mr Mako said the dog handler failed to tell his police superiors about the lost explosives until last Monday.

A telex sent by staff at Poprad-Tatry airport to Dublin airport baggage handlers stated misleadingly that the explosives were not dangerous. Additionally, Danube Wings and Czech Airlines – which supplied the aircraft and crew – insist that the control tower told the pilot that the explosives were merely a harmless “dummy” package.

Opposition politicians visited Poprad-Tatry yesterday to investigate the incident, but said they received few answers from airport bosses.

“Just as we were considering the case a huge international disgrace for the interior ministry, so it spreads to the transport ministry, under [whose jurisdiction] the airport falls,” said former defence minister and senior opposition member Martin Fedor.

He blamed the scandal on “clear systemic faults in the departments of interior and transport” rather than individual error.

Leaders of the main opposition parties hope to secure enough support in parliament today to hold a vote of no-confidence next week in Mr Vazny, whose reputation has been further damaged this week by nationwide truckers’ protests at a troublesome new system of road tolls.

Government critics also demand the resignation of Mr Kalinak, who is expected to face questions on the explosives affair from the parliamentary defence and security committee.

A spokesman for Mr Kalinak told The Irish Timesyesterday that the minister would "answer all questions" about the case when he went before the committee.