Former MP Wolf avoids serving prison sentence

Ostrava, North Moravia, Jan 24 (CTK) - The Ostrava Regional Court Thursday issued an order to arrest former Czech lawmaker Petr Wolf who should have started his six-year prison sentence over a subsidy fraud but seems to be trying to avoid it, the court's spokesman Jiri Krivsky told CTK.

Wolf applied for a four-week postponement of the date of the beginning of his prison sentence in early January, but the court rejected it.

Neither the postal service nor the police succeeded in handing the call to turn up in prison to Wolf, despite repeated attempts. The judge concluded that Wolf may be hiding from the authorities.

The police will start searching for Wolf and they will hand him over to the Prison Service if they reveal him.

Wolf and his wife cheated the Environment Ministry from which they received 11 million crowns in subsidies for their projects in 2005-07. They gained the money on the basis of imprecise, distorted and false information, the Olomouc High Court ruled. The court imposed a fine of six million crowns on them and the wife received a suspended sentence.

Wolf writes on his website that he considers the his punishment wrong and unjust and that he will challenge the verdict, which has taken effect, however.

Wolf was elected a lower house deputy for the Social Democrats (CSSD) in 2006. However, he later left the CSSD and backed the government led by the rival Civic Democrats (ODS). The parliament released him for criminal prosecution in late 2009. His deputy's mandate expired in mid-2010.