A Slovak investigative journalist and his girlfriend were found shot dead in their home in a village east of Bratislava following a call to the police from a worried family member, Slovak police said Sunday.

Jan Kuciak, 27, worked for the web journal Aktuality and investigated financial crimes. His last story was on businessman Marian Kocner, and suspicious transfers of luxury properties and tax fraud. 

“Slovakia has never faced such an unprecedented attack on a journalist,” police chief Tibor Gasper stated at a press conference on Monday.

Kuciak had been receiving threats against him and his family. In November 2017, he posted on his Facebook page that he received threatening phone calls which he reported to the police. Kuciak complained that the police did not investigate the matter.

“You read these lines and you do not know how much sadness is today in our editorial office,” Aktuality editor-in-chief Peter Bardy wrote on its website.

“They murdered our colleague Jan Kuciak - a good man, a friend, a guy who did his job to make us live better. In order to uncover the criminality and injustice.”

The Slovak Section of the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) issued a statement about the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee.

Ján Kuciak was an investigative journalist. (Photo: Aktuality.sk) 

occrp.org