It may have been a pressing affair of state, but police weren’t impressed when a Cabinet minister from Slovakia zipped past them going 146 mph on an Austrian highway.
It took five miles for the pursuing officers to get the speeding minister to stop, the Oberoesterreichischen Nachrichten newspaper reported Monday. Authorities did not release the name of the official, who was fined $930 on the spot.
But Pavol Rusko, Slovakia’s economics minister, later came forward Monday to tell the state-run Slovak news agency TASR that he was responsible. Rusko expressed remorse over the incident, adding that his car “has great acceleration.”
Rusko’s spokesman, Maros Havran, said the minister was caught speeding as he returned home from a meeting in Brussels, Belgium.
Police gave chase on Sunday when the minister’s sedan flashed by as they were pulling onto Austria’s key A1 east-west highway from a rest area near Linz, about 120 miles west of Vienna, the newspaper said.
The speed limit on that stretch of highway is 62 mph.
The minister’s bodyguard paid the fine in cash, the paper said.
“If he had tried to drive away from us, we would have had to give up our pursuit. It was too dangerous,” police Maj. Klaus Scherleitneras told the newspaper.