No unlawful conduct in attack on Zeman's computer, police say

Prague, April 3 (CTK) - The Czech police have found no unlawful conduct in the alleged attack on President Milos Zeman's computer, into which hackers allegedly downloaded child pornography and ended the investigation into the case, police presidium spokeswoman Iveta Martinkova told CTK yesterday.

According to servers Aktualne.cz and Neovlivni.cz, the improper content must have got into the computer in a different way. They say Zeman himself gradually clicked to it.

Zeman's spokesman Jiri Ovcacek rejected this version.

Martinkova said the police deal with the matter because it is their duty.

"Nevertheless, the investigation has already been ended because no suspicion of an unlawful conduct was ascertained," she said.

Martinkova said the police will not comment on any details of the case.

Reacting to the media news, Ovcacek tweeted that it was beyond doubt a hacker attack.

"By no means was the President clicking on an improper content. Hackers attacked at least 11 editorial systems which then showed an improper content. IT experts of Prague Castle (presidential seat) immediately alerted their administrators," Ovcacek wrote.

Zeman told commercial radio Frekvence 1 at the end of March that less than one year ago, someone installed child pornography in his computer.

"I was watching it for about ten seconds until I realised what it was about. Then I called IT experts from the (Prague) Castle," Zeman told the radio.

Zeman said he first intended to file a legal complaint due to the incident, but he eventually did not do so because the traces led to Alabama, U.S.

Ovcacek said later the incident occurred in 2015.

He told the public Czech Radio (CRo) news web page that sensitive or confidential information could not leak because Zeman only uses the computer to browse the Internet. He does not use e-mail and stores nothing in the computer.
Ovcacek said the protection of the computer network has been "raised several times" since then.

Prague Castle did not turn to the National Security Office (NBU) over the matter. Its spokesman Radek Holy said the computer does not probably fall under the law on cyber security and that is why Castle did not have the duty to report the incident.

Aktualne.cz reported later that NBU experts are going to visit Prague Castle to analyse its cyber protection.