Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. Slovakian Foreign Minister: Reporter's Murder 'Changed my Country' Yulia Savchenko WASHINGTON - Slovakia's top diplomat says last year's murder of an investigative journalist and his fiancée has changed the Central European country and possibly altered how citizens will vote in upcoming parliamentary elections. "I must say that this killing has changed my country and that this is a different Slovakia after the murder," Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav LajÄák told VOA's Russian Service on Tuesday. "And those who ordered the killing, which are not the same(as those)who committed this horrible crime, achieved an exact opposite of what they wanted to achieve." LajÄák's comments came one day after Slovak authorities brought charges against high-profile businessperson Marian Kocner and three others in the February 2018 shooting deaths of reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancée,Martina Kusnirov. "Our people are now demanding full transparency, zero corruption, zero tolerance for misusing the judiciary and police," said LajÄák. "There is no doubt that this will play a very important role also in upcoming parliamentary elections that are scheduled for February next year." Their killings, which police described as an expert-caliber assassination, sparked nationwide anti-corruption protests that ended the longtime rule of ex-prime minister Robert Fico and other high-level officials. Although Fico's ruling three-party coalition survived March2019 elections, they've seen dwindling public support over resentment that legislators and police failed to respond quickly toexposésby Kuciak and other journalists linking a powerful Italian organized crime group to Slovakian government officials. According to court documents, Kuciak received death threats directly from Kocner, whose business dealings were at the center of Kuciak's published reports. .