MPs say govt did not ask BIS to monitor Sazka

Prague, Nov 5 (CTK) - The previous government did not ask the counter-intelligence service BIS to monitor the lottery company Sazka, the Czech lower house's commission for supervising the BIS concluded Thursday, its chairman Jeronym Tejc (Social Democrats, CSSD) told reporters Thursday.

He would not comment on whether the BIS really monitored Sazka under the government of Mirek Topolanek, as the media have reported.

Tejc said the commission will ask the BIS questions in this respect and will require it to answer them in writing.

The commission also agreed to invite Topolanek (Civic Democrats, ODS) and Ondrej Liska, education minister in his cabinet (in power from 2007 to this May), to attend its next meeting later this month.

Some media recently reported that Topolanek and Liska had Sazka monitored by the BIS. Both politicians dismissed the information.

The commission will now check the reasons why the BIS showed interest in Sazka and also whether excerpts from the BIS report on Sazka have really leaked to the media, Tejc said.

He said the commission will ask whether the BIS focused on Sazka to eliminate an impending security risk or to protect the state's economic interests. If so, it will ask whose financial interests were at stake.

The commission's meeting today was attended by Sazka director Ales Husak and Sazka board of directors deputy chairman Roman Jecminek.

Jecminek told journalists that the monitoring of Sazka is sensitive mainly from the point of view of its shareholders, civic associations. They were surprised at the BIS having chosen Sazka out of the country's 381 lottery companies, he said.

"Sazka is far from being the largest in terms of the financial means flowing through it," he said.

He said Sazka does not run any games that could help launder dirty money or back another kind of organised crime.

Jecminek also said that the information about the financial situation of Sazka is its private matter, but definitely not a reason for anyone to have Sazka monitored.

Server Aktualne.cz recently wrote that Topolanek Liska planned a crackdown on Sazka and had it checked by the BIS. On the basis of a BIS report they allegedly arrived at the conclusion that some of Sazka's activities threaten the internal security of the state.

Topolanek then said he neither asked the BIS to pay special attention to Sazka, nor did he have to as monitoring lottery companies is a routine part of the BIS's agenda.

It was Sazka and Husak who has asked the lower house's standing commission for supervising the BIS to check the affair. Sazka has also turned to Prime Minister Jan Fischer.

After years of smooth functioning, Sazka has got into trouble recently. It repays the giant arena it had built in Prague-Vysocany a couple of years ago on the basis of the decision of its shareholders, sport associations. It is short of money it needs to subsidise sport as is expected from it, daily Mlada fronta Dnes wrote last month.

In its article it says that various motives, including economic competition and rivalry between political parties, my be behind the latest turbulences around Sazka.