On Saturday, the State Police, the Interior Affairs and Complaints Service at the Ministry of Interior Affairs, and the Prosecution Office released a joint statement regarding the death of the Interior Minister’s driver. The suspect that the death, caused by a firearm, has been a suicide.
However, instead of clearing things up, the statement, published only on the State Police’s website, has raised even more suspicions, as a result of its unusual form and contents.
At the very least, the statement is unusual for being released by the Prosecution Office, which normally only releases notifications concerning the opening or closing of investigations, instead of commenting on preemptive and circumstantial information, or to state opinions that are not based on any formal investigative rulings, like in this case.
On the other hand, in a similarly unusual move, the statement was a joint one, released by the State Police, the Interior Affairs and Complaints Service at the Ministry of Interior Affairs, and the Prosecution Office. Investigations are carried out by the prosecution, which is not only the authority that decides on and leads the investigations, but also the only authority that may present suspicions or investigative hypotheses. It is, therefore, unclear exactly why the Prosecution has decided to collaborate with the State Police and the Ministry of Interior Affairs to release this joint statement, at a time when the Republican Guard, an organ of the Ministry, had released a previous statement announcing the tragic event.
It is likely that the “joint” statement was drafted by the State Police and the Ministry, with the Prosecution’s name being attached to it to raise its trustworthiness.
As it has been reported, multiple bullets were found at the crime scene – different media source speak of at least six bullet casings, while the Prosecution has reported three. This would mean that the gunshots would have been heard within the Republican Guard’s headquarters, as well as by citizens living or walking nearby.
However, the statement of the Prosecution and the Republican Guard sidesteps this detail entirely, going on to say only that “the body was found,” without disclosing how and by whom. Therefore an important detail of the event is being kept hidden from the public.
However, after “forgetting” about this important detail, the police statement reports other, seemingly far-fetched, details.
So, the statement stresses that the garage where the car with the body was found “was found locked from the inside.” Nothing is yet known about the type of the garage door – normal garages use electric doors, that cannot be “locked from the inside,” whereas a mechanical door garage seems unusual. However, this piece of information is clearly meant to imply that the victim closed the garage door himself, and no one exited the garage after that.
Next, the statement discloses an incredibly specific detail, stating that, on the victim’s head, there were bullet wounds shot in a right-to-left direction:
In the victim’s head, there is a through and through wound caused by a firearm, shot in a right-to-left direction.
This detail, coupled with the previous, further enforces the suicide hypothesis – a typically right-handed person would naturally shoot himself by holding the gun in his right hand and placing it on the right side of his head.
Furthermore, after a fact that could lead to a possible murder hypothesis, namely that at least three bullet casings were found on the scene, the statement immediately gives another detail to fit the above within the suicide hypothesis, stressing that the gun as set to “fully automatic,” that is, to fire several bullets for as long as the trigger is pressed:
3 bullet casings were found on the scene, fired from an automatic MP5 weapon, found in the victim’s right hand, set to fully automatic.
However, this statement contradicts forensic evidence that concludes it as almost impossible for a person to manage to keep the trigger pressed, and be able to shoot more than one bullet, after being shot in the head.
After delineating these circumstantial indicators that imply suicide – without stating any other investigative or circumstantial fact whatsoever, not even how many bullets pierced the body or where the bullets were found – the statement naturally goes on to assert that “it is believed that the victim committed suicide with his service firearm.”
At its conclusion, the statement turns unprofessional after it refers to the victim as “the late,” an entirely non-technical term that has never been used before in a Prosecution statement. The Prosecution, furthermore, seems willing to disseminate another claim, that it hardly had time to confirm, declaring that “the late serviceman has never been the subject of any disciplinary process, suspension, or any other disciplinary measure.”
This suspicious statement, which followed a mass of contradictory information published by various media sources – including the claim that the victim was found at 06:00 instead of 09:30, as the official report stated, and that six, instead of three, bullet casings were found at the scene – has done little but raise further doubts regarding of the Interior Minister’s former driver’s death.
