【经济学人】20年悬而未决的政治疑团|2017.04.01|总第861期

IN AUGUST 1995 Michal Kovac Jr, whose father was president of newly independent Slovakia, was stopped in his car by armed men who handcuffed him, forced him to drink two bottles of whisky and began driving him to an unknown destination. When he tried to jump out of the car, they beat him and shocked him with a stun gun . The 34-year-old Mr Kovac woke up in Austria, where police arrested him in connection with a German financial probe. They said they had been tipped off to his whereabouts by a Slovak informant. An Austrian court soon released him because of the illegal manner of his detainment. He was never charged.

1995年8月，此时斯洛伐克刚刚独立，新上任总统的儿子小科瓦克在车上被一伙武装人士铐起来，强行灌了两杯威士忌之后，被带去了没人知道的地方。当小科瓦克试图跳车逃走的时候，绑匪就开始殴打他，并且对他使用了电击枪。而34岁的科瓦克总统此时正在奥地利，当他醒来的时候，警察正以涉嫌一桩德国金融调查案为由逮捕他。 警察透露他们是通过一位斯洛伐克线人知道了总统的位置。而奥地利法院很快就因为扣留不合法释放了总统，而他此后再没有遭到指控。

• stun gun：电击枪

Slovak police and justice officials investigating the kidnapping were frustrated when a key witness went into hiding and his police contact was killed with a car-bomb.（读者试译句） Still, they managed to prepare an indictment, which was later leaked. It pinned the crime on private thugs hired by the Slovak secret services (SIS), whose head, Ivan Lexa, was the right-hand man of Vladimir Meciar, the prime minister at the time. The senior Mr Kovac was a political opponent of Mr Meciar’s. But before charges could be brought, Mr Meciar passed an amnesty law that buried the case.

（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~） 然而，警方和司法官员仍设法准备对罪犯提起公诉，但是他们的计划随后被泄露了。此后，这个案子被归罪到为私人做事的暴徒身上，而这些暴徒是由伊万-雷克沙所领导的斯洛伐克秘密情报局雇佣的。Ivan Lexa是时任总理瓦德米尔-米契尔的左膀右臂，但就在警方和法官提起公讼前，米契尔却通过了一部特赦法案，使得这件绑架案不了了之。

• amnesty law 特赦法案；大赦法

Mr Meciar has spent the past few years in quiet retirement at his mansion, christened “Elektra”. But on March 2nd a docudrama about the case, “Unos” (“Kidnapping”), opened in Slovakia, putting the old case back in the headlines. Mr Meciar felt obliged to appear on television to defend himself. Polls showed that 63% of Slovaks favoured revoking the amnesty law, and on March 13th Robert Fico, the current prime minister, announced that he would do so.