Constitutional Court rejects former defense minister's Tatra complaint

Brno, July 10 (CTK) - The Czech Constitutional Court (US) has rejected a complaint lodged by former defence minister Martin Bartak about the circumstances of his criminal prosecution over alleged corruption, CTK found out from the court's database yesterday.

The court made the decision without public hearing in June.

Bartak is suspected of having asked for a bribe in connection with the purchase of Tatra lorries for the military in 2008.

The police started to prosecute Bartak last November. Bartak lodged another constitutional complaint against the protracted investigation still before, but the court also dismissed it.

In the complaint that the court has just dismissed Bartak claimed that he is being prosecuted illegally, that evidence is missing in the case and that the deed for which he is prosecuted does not have all law-embedded signs of a criminal act.

He pointed to that the alleged request for the bribe was made in the United States and therefore he challenged the local jurisdiction of the Regional State Attorney's Office in Ostrava, north Moravia, that supervises the case.

Bartak also objected to being prosecuted together with armament dealer Michal Smrz.

Bartak wrote the police did not prove any links between him and Smrz in the Tatra case.

The case of the supply of Tatra lorries for 2.7 billion crowns was opened by the former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, William Cabaniss.

When he started to work with the Tatra lorry maker, he claimed that Bartak, then deputy to then defence minister Vlasta Parkanova, asked him for money in 2008 in exchange for settling problems with Tatra's military order. Bartak dismisses the accusation.

Tatra signed a contract on the supply of off-road lorries with the Czech Defence Ministry in December 2006 when Bartak did not yet work at the ministry. Under the contract, the Czech firm Praga was to supply spare parts, but Tatra terminated cooperation with it over allegedly bad-quality supplies, which caused a complicated dispute.

Bartak said last year he participated in the presentation of the Ceska zbrojovka armament maker at a shooting range near Washington in January 2008 as a member of a Czech government delegation.

He claims that Tatra representatives Cabaniss and Duncan Sellars addressed the delegation headed by then Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek. They allegedly feared that the Czech government might terminate the firm's contract.

Bartak said previously he only interpreted for Topolanek. Topolanek expressed dissatisfaction with that Tatra terminated cooperation with Praga and so breached its commitment to support Czech industry.

"He did not say anything else but that I translate the sentence that he is dissatisfied with this and that it would be good if the Czech entity were compensated somehow, in the form of another order, cooperation or anything," Bartak said last year.

¨Cabaniss and Sellars, however, allegedly said later that Bartak wanted them to pay for a settlement between Tatra and Praga.