On the 20th of June 2014, three weeks before the then-elections to the National Assembly, when Janez Janša had to go to prison, Andreja Katič brought a bottle of champagne to the municipality of Velenje. According to eyewitnesses, she was elated and celebrated the victory over the “class enemy” with her colleagues. Andreja Katič was the Director of the Municipal Administration of Velenje from 1998 until July 2014. This is the municipality where the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) have held power since 1945. Velenje is also the town where the seat of the district court and the seat of the municipal organisation of the Social Democrats party are located at the same address in the same building. Velenje also has a legal service, headed by Suzana Žinić, a juror at the District Court in Celje.
Today, Andreja Katič is the Minister of Justice in the government of Dr Robert Golob. She also served in the government of Marjan Šarec. At the beginning of his term of office, according to his own words and the testimony of a member of his government, Robert Golob gave a clear order to his subordinates to purge Slovenia or its state institutions of “Janšaists” – supporters of the leader of the opposition, Janša. This was nothing new for Katič, who is known in Velenje and beyond for publicly expressing her hatred of Janša and the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) at every turn. She also weaves this hatred into her numerous appearances at events organised by the Associations of the National Liberation Movement of Slovenia. One only has to browse the internet to find proof of that, where more than enough evidence can be found. It is therefore not surprising to find hints that, in addition to the remediation of the Litijska affair, Minister Katič is also directly involved in the project of “purging Janšaists” at the highest level.
On Monday, the first in a series of hearings that will stretch over three months, until the end of September, started at the Celje District Court. The target is once again the President of the SDS party, Janez Janša, whom the transitional left wants to sentence again just before the next elections to the National Assembly. The process has been 13 years in the making, and nothing has been left to chance. Boštjan Valenčič, a protégé of the State Prosecutor Hinko Jenull, was appointed prosecutor in this case. Hinko Jenull was once the alpha and omega of the Slovenian prosecution service, with direct access to key people in the deep state. Today, however, he is probably less well-known to most of the public than his son Jaša Jenull, a political cyclist, a persecutor of fascists, amphibians and Slovenian doctors.
Prosecutor Boštjan Valenčič was therefore chosen to succeed Hinko Jenull and enthusiastically took over the political prosecution in the Trenta case, dragging it out for almost a decade and a half with the help of the investigating judge. Then began his career and property climb. Despite his relative youth, he became President of the Association of Public Prosecutors.
His wife, Martina Valenčič, has been posting interesting photos of her tattooed husband (a prosecutor) from exotic holiday destinations on Instagram. Colleagues found it very strange that – despite earning a modest prosecutor’s salary – he bought an apartment in an elite location in the centre of Ljubljana, right next to the current headquarters of the Social Democrats on Nazorjeva Street.
It is also important to note that the investigating judge before the Trenta indictment was Irena Topolšek. For years, she faithfully followed the prosecution’s requests and kept ordering new forensic evaluations until the prosecutor, Boštjan Valenčič, was roughly satisfied with one.
At the District Court in Celje, where they have a wealth of experience with political trials in the modern era, the case was handled with all due diligence. A whole series of hearings have been scheduled for a trivial case which, in a normal country, would have been resolved by a judge in no more than two hours. In fact, according to many lawyers, the indictment is so absurd that it exceeds even that of the Patria case. Namely, the SDS President Janez Janša is being accused of aiding and abetting in a case of abuse of office. And the offence they are accusing him of is the following: he bought a property in Trenta from a natural person in 1992 for 45,000 Deutschmarks and sold it to another natural person in 2005 for 120,000 euros.
A quick search on the internet tells us that real estate in this part of Slovenia has appreciated, on average, by a factor of three to five since Slovenia’s accession to the European Union. The aim of the trial is, of course, not to prove that there was anything wrong with the sale of the property. That has already been “proven” by the media in 13 years of slander. The aim is to create media noise and smear the accused during a series of court hearings, just like POP TV and RTV Slovenia did during the 50-plus hearings on the Patria affair. In the end, it does not even matter what the decision is at the last court level because, in the meantime, the accused can be dragged around the courts for months and sent to prison anyway. Then, when the verdict is overturned, the media publishes it once, and the news never even reaches the mainstream public.
From what is known and what has been published so far, it is still not entirely clear in what order Judge Cvetka Posilovič, judge-juror Andrej Volk and judge-juror Suzana Žinić were assigned to the trial. Judge Posilovic is known for her high sentences. Some people mention the fact that she is an acquaintance of Katič’s in connection with the handling of administrative court cases, but this information has not been verified.
Is this a “conviction” jury?
Certainly, Minister Katič is very well known to the judge-juror Suzana Žinić. Namely, the latter is the head of the Minister’s legal department at the Municipality of Velenje. Insiders say that it is not possible to occupy a leading position at the Municipality of Velenje without first obtaining an SD party membership card. Or to be promoted to a leading position without the support of the SD Mayor and/or Andreja Katič. Katič is also said to know the other judge-juror, Andrej Volk, who was employed in the neighbouring municipality of Šoštanj. They are said to have worked well together at the time when he was one of the leaders in local Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS) politics, for which he also ran as a candidate in 2006. At that time, he was also allegedly employed by the LDS Mayor Kopušar in the municipality of Šoštanj. In 2022, he stood as a candidate on the Our Country (Naša dežela) party list in the elections to the National Assembly.
There are a number of rumours circulating about the close ties and acquaintanceships between a number of female judges and jurors and the Minister of Justice and Social Democrat official, Andrea Katič, which we have not yet been able to verify. We are also checking the allegations contained in two anonymous letters we have received in the last week, which detail some allegedly controversial proceedings at the Local Court and the District Court in Celje. There is no shortage of juicy details about the fractious and particularly warm relations between some of the judges. We are verifying the information, so more on that next time.
C. Š.
