Our source (the information is stored in our editorial office) informed us that MP Sara Žibrat used her political connections to ensure that both of her parents, who had falsified documents during the coronavirus epidemic and were even dismissed as a result of it, were reinstated and paid additional compensation for the period during which they were unemployed. If this information is true, it is a scandal that warrants not only the resignation of the MP in question and the Director-General of the Police, but also the government.
The parents of Member of Parliament and Vice-President of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), Sara Žibrat, are former police officers who allegedly used false PCT certificates (PCT stands for recovered, vaccinated, tested) during the coronavirus pandemic, and they allegedly also hacked into the police information system. As a result, they faced a two-year prison sentence. When the Freedom Movement party took power, and their daughter with it, they were very optimistic that they would not go to prison and that they would get their jobs back.
Boris and Laura Žibrat found themselves under scrutiny by a special department of the Specialised State Prosecutor’s Office for the Investigation and Prosecution of Officials with Special Powers. An indictment was filed for an attack on an information system, which is a criminal offence under the second paragraph of Article 221 of the Criminal Code (KZ-1).
The second paragraph of Article 221 of the Criminal Code states that this criminal offence is punishable by imprisonment of up to two years. More specifically, it refers to the punishment of individuals who use data in an information system without authorisation, who alter, copy, transfer or destroy the information from it, or enter data into an information system without authorisation, thereby obstructing the transfer of data or the operation of the information system.
They faced two years in prison, but wanted to continue working in the police force
The police dismissed them in 2022 for forging certificates during the pandemic. In early March 2023, the proceedings at the Labour Courts in Maribor and Murska Sobota ended with lawsuits in which Boris (former inspector in the uniformed police sector of the Murska Sobota Police Department) and Laura Žibrat (former criminal investigator in the criminal police sector of the Murska Sobota Police Department) filed lawsuits against the Ministry of the Interior and the police, respectively. They lost the case.
Judgments were issued in both cases, which then ended up in appeal proceedings before the Higher Labour and Social Court in Ljubljana. As reported by the media outlet Vestnik, they also lost in the second-instance judgment. Only later did the public learn that the parents of the Vice-President of the Freedom Movement had even hacked into the information system. Both then sought to return to their lost jobs in the police, even though they faced up to two years in prison.
Director-General of the Police in the previous, Janša’s government, Dr Anton Olaj, emphasised during the house searches of the Žibrat couple that there would be “zero tolerance for employees who commit criminal offences, as such conduct is unacceptable under current regulations and due to the nature of police work.” He added that “there is no place for police officers who commit illegal acts in our police force, as this casts a bad light on police officers who perform their duties honestly and with dedication.” In addition to the Žibrat couple, six other police officers received termination of their employment contracts at the time due to false certificates.
Questions for the police
Now, as far as we can believe our source, their wish to return to work has obviously come true. We therefore asked the police administration whether Boris and Laura Žibrat are indeed employed by the police administration again and whether they have received compensation from the state, even though it was proven in the proceedings that they had forged their PCT certificates.
If it turns out that they were indeed reinstated and that political pressure from the Vice-President of the Freedom Movement party was decisive in this, then this is, of course, a typical case of abuse of power by the Freedom Movement party, for which the government should resign.
I. K.
