A former soldier has been sentenced to 23 years in prison in Slovakia for the alleged contract killings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.

A court in the town of Pezinok, north of the capital Bratislava, convicted Miroslav Marcek (pictured) over the fatal shootings in February 2018 of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova, both aged 27.

Marcek had pleaded guilty in January.