Slovak police

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico received a letter containing a bullet from an unknown sender, the Bratislava government announced on Wednesday. The Slovak police have taken over the investigation, according to the government’s press department in a statement to Politico.

Slovak police have accused the intelligence chief and other senior security officials of creating a criminal group and conspiring to abuse power in a case just weeks before early elections, Reuters reported.

Slovaks have long had the dubious distinction of being the most prone in Europe to believe in conspiracy theories and disinformation, which might explain the prevalence of such sites targeting the Slovak information space.

In a country where polls show more than half of people believe conspiracy theories and two-thirds do not trust state institutions, hoaxes and fake news have an infectious power.

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But while Slovak police have set up a Facebook page to debunk hoaxes and civil society organisations try to explain the dangers of information wars and widespread media illiteracy, some social media users are taking matters into their own hands.

Politicians in various European countries have insulted and discredited journalists, populism is on the rise, the press is vilified - and it has led to the creation of an environment in which two journalists were killed in just four months in two European Union states, Malta and Slovakia.

Workers from Serbia, whom the Slovak police arrested and then released on Tuesday are currently located in the Police Detention Center for Aliens in Medvedov.

Apart from the 23 citizens of Serbia, there are currently 27 Ukrainians, eight citizens of Macedonia and four citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the facility, Tanjug said it learned.

Twenty-five Slovak police officers will help Bulgaria protect is border with Turkey as part of the effort to tackle the migrant crisis in Europe.

The officers will be deployed for at least a month and will later be replaced by colleagues, news website Dnevnik.bg reports, citing the officials Slovak news agency, TASR.