Court halts prosecution of judge Berka

Ceske Budejovice, South Bohemia, Prague, Jan 11 (CTK) - The Regional Court in Tabor has halted the prosecution of judge Jiri Berka in the case of manipulated bankruptcies on the basis of the amnesty that President Vaclav Klaus announced on January 1, court senate chairman Zdenek Kucera told CTK Friday.

Berka should get five million crowns in compensation for a lost salary, the court's spokeswoman said.

The state attorney has lodged a complaint against the halting of Berka's prosecution, the Justice Ministry's spokeswoman Stepanka Cechova told CTK.

Klaus announced the amnesty on January 1. It pardons some prisoners as well as people given suspended sentences and halts criminal prosecution that continued for minimally eight years in cases that do not carry more than ten years in prison, which may include some serious economic crimes.

"The criminal activities of the charged Berka fully falls under the amnesty. In the case of another charged person, Vladislav Vetrovec, we have only made a decision on a partial amnesty," Kucera said.

Klaus dismissed any connection between the Berka case and his way of planning the presidential amnesty.

"No concrete name occurred to me when I was planning the amnesty and consulting its conditions in detail," Klaus told journalists Friday.

It would never occur to him to deal with the Berka case either, he added.

Kucera said Berka was prosecuted for participation in criminal conspiracy and abuse of public office.

The case of suspicious bankruptcies has continued since 2003. It has been one of the most extensive cases in the history of the Czech judiciary, in which 12 people have been charged.

The Regional Court in Tabor convicted nine of them for participation in a criminal conspiracy with a huge damage in 2010, another three were acquitted.

Judge Berka, bankruptcy receiver Daniel Thonat and Vladislav Vetrovec, former pro-rector of the Karel Englis University in Brno, were given the nine-year sentences, but they appealed the sentences.

The Supreme Court sent the case to the Olomouc High Court in 2011 that returned the case to the Regional Court in Tabor in May 2012 for reappraisal.

According to the indictment, the gang inflicted a damage of 264 million crowns on ten firms that Berka sent into bankruptcy based on faked documents. The gang tried to strip firms of another 202 million crowns, according to the indictment.

Kucera said the Tabor court Friday also decided that the amnesty fully applies to another two suspects in the Berka case, Thonat and Lubor Kindl, and partly to Vetrovec and Marta Cihakova.

"As for another two suspects, it is not ruled out that the amnesty may apply to them to an extent. The decision is yet to be made," Kucera said.

The state attorney Friday filed a complaint against the halting of the prosecution of Berka. Justice ministry said it does not consider the case closed and wants to use all its powers to prevent Berka's return to the post of judge.

"If the effects of the prosecution, to which the amnesty does not apply, are preserved, Justice Minister [Pavel Blazek, Civic Democrats, ODS] will immediately strip Jiri Berka of his post of a judge," Cechova said.

The opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) have criticised the amnesty granted to Berka.

CSSD deputy head Lubomir Zaoralek called the possible return of lost wage to Berka and his reinstallation as a judge totally immoral and called on the government and the justice minister to start dealing with the situation immediately.

The halting of Berka's prosecution enhances the suspicion that organised crime is capable of securing impunity for its protagonists and of penetrating the top levels of the state, Zaoralek said, recalling the media information that Vetrovec was linked to President Klaus's legal advisers Zdenek Sovak, Milan Kindl and Karel Muzikar.

The amnesty thus has a character of a conspiration prepared in advance, Zaoralek pointed out.

($=19.545 crowns)