A probe into how the police handled anti-government protests during the Covid-19 epidemic in Ljubljana has found a number of violations and flaws, including excessive, unwarranted and unprofessional use of force such as tear gas and water cannon.

The probe, ordered by Interior Minister Tatjana Bobnar and concerning the period under the previous government, continued for more than three months before a final report was presented to the public on 6 December and referred to the prosecution to look into allegations of criminal offences in it.

The report points both to systemic flaws and those on the operative level and the Interior Ministry has already drawn up legislative amendments to prevent similar anomalies from getting repeated in the future.

"One of the systemic flaws is that the rules on police powers allow the use of water cannon where water is mixed with tear gas. But there's no basis for that in the law," Slavko Koroš, the head of the Directorate for Police and Other Security Tasks, said.

"Very few countries in Europe have this kind of police powers, and even there the use of water jets with gas agents is very precisely defined in the law," he added.

The police also do not have internal acts to define in more detail the use of means of force such as tear gas or water cannon against a crowd.

The report also found specific mishandling of protests, including disproportionate, unjustified and unprofessional use of tear gas and water jets. Koroš said that in just one protest the police used 440 tear gas rounds.

"In several cases, tear gas was used where there were no violations at all. A water jet with tear gas was even used against individuals who din't commit any offences, for example against a disabled person on crutches. All I can is I'm sorry," he said.

A further finding is that the content of the document on the use of repressive means was manipulated, that police officers communicated inappropriately, and that police officers not trained for such tasks were deployed to the operational headquarters.

Much of the report refers to the violent crackdown on a protest against Covid-19 restrictions in Ljubljana on 5 October 2021, which coincided with an EU-Western Balkans summit at Brdo.

While the operation was ongoing, Aleš Hojs, the interior minister of the time, and Žan Mahnič, who was a state sectary at the PM Janez Janša's office, called on one of the headquarters running the operation.

Although internal police rules do not prohibit such visits, Koroš said they can have negative impact on the work of the police officers concerned in terms of their autonomy and professionalism and thus on their decisions.

It follows from interviews and recordings of verbal communication that one of the politicians visiting the operational headquarters of the General Police Administration reproached one of the police officers present for drawing up a criminal complaint against him.

The ministry said the situation was uneasy for everyone present and as such unacceptable.

Based on the findings, the ministry has drawn up legislative amendments to ban the use of water jets containing tear gas, to increase oversight of the use of repressive means against a crowd, and to prevent politicians from accessing operational headquarters while police duties activities are ongoing.

Former Interior Minister Aleš Hojs and former Police Commissioner Anton Olaj downplayed the findings, saying they mainly point to irregularities in regulations. Olaj noted that he had appointed a fact-finding commission himself which established coercive means during October 2021 protest were used lawfully and based on professional standards.