Prague, March 16 (CTK) – Czech Presidential Office head Vratislav Mynar, whom the National Security Office (NBU) has refused to grant a top security clearance, is to end in office after the visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 28, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes yesterday.
Mynar has also failed with his remonstrance challenging the NBU’s decision and he will turn to a court in the case.
However, LN writes, President Milos Zeman is not likely to wait for the court verdict, especially after he indicated at the celebration of the third anniversary of his inauguration that he would be defending the post in 2018. Consequently, Zeman does not want to be surrounded by the people whose reputation might harm him in his potential voters’ eyes, LN adds.
Nevertheless, Mynar will stay close to Zeman. According to unofficial sources, he is to become the director of the Prague Castle Administration, replacing Ivo Velisek.
Mynar has refused to comment on the speculations.
LN writes that Mynar as the head of Zeman’s office might be replaced by Jan Novak, head of the administrative and security sections at the Presidential Office. However, Novak does not have the necessary security clearance for confidential or strictly confidential level either. It expired some time ago.
LN says Novak was appointed a new security chief after Jan Fulik was sacked from the post due to an incident with red boxer shorts flying above Prague Castle, the presidential seat.
Yet Novak has only a security clearance of a lower level, which is granted by the employer, it adds.
Security clearance enables their holders to get acquainted with classified information for the president from secret services, for instance, on terrorism threats.
LN writes that in the past, the Czech president’s security chiefs always had a top secret clearance, which Ivo Mathe, former head of the Presidential Office under Vaclav Havel’s presidency, confirmed.
Without it, the security chief is not able to check the work of his subordinates who look into secret and top secret files.
Novak defends himself, saying another senior official, the security director of the Presidential Office, Lenka Novakova, deals with classified documents instead of him. She is subordinate to Mynar who has no security clearance at all, LN says.
Currently, neither Novak, nor Mynar can check the work of the security director, former military intelligence chief Andor Sandor told LN.
Mathe has expressed surprise at the fact that Novak had his security clearance for top secret level expired since he clearly focused on the work with intelligence service during his long career in the Presidential Office where he has been working in various posts since the 1990s.
“On the basis of the valid rule, you will apply for a security vetting at the moment you need it,” Novak only said.
