Prague, March 21 (CTK) – Vaclav Knotek, the key lawyer of Czech Finance Minister and ANO chairman Andrej Babis, was behind the strategic decision on drawing the dubious 50-million-crown European subsidy for the Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest) complex, the HlidaciPes.org. server has reported.
Knotek held the bearer shares along with Gabriela Knapova, head of the legal section of Babis’s Agrofert Holding, which now owns the Farma Capi Hnizdo resort.
Until 2007, the Farma Capi hnizdo company belonged to Babis’s Agrofert Holding. Afterwards, its stake was transferred to bearer shares for a small firm to reach a 50-million-crown EU subsidy, which a firm of the huge Agrofert Holding could never get. It observed this condition for a few years, but later it again returned to Babis’s concern.
Some right-wing opposition politicians consider it a subsidy fraud, and therefore have initiated an extraordinary lower house session to deal with it.
Babis claims that he knows the name of the owner of Capi hnizdo when the project gained the EU subsidy, but that he will not reveal it yet.
The ANO board will debate the case tonight and an extraordinary session of the lower house on Wednesday.
Knotek chaired the general meetings of the Capi hnizdo firm and he signed the crucial changes to its statutes.
He works or worked in the statutory bodies of 16 of Babis’s firms and is a member of the board of Babis’ Agrofert Foundation, along with Babis and his common wife Monika, the server says.
On behalf of Babis’s IMOBA firm, Knotek also signed the contract on the purchase of the plots on which the Capi Hnizdo centre was built, some 50 km south of Prague.
In 2008, Knotek brought the Farma Capi hnizdo firm’s ten shares worth one million crowns to a general meeting, while the remaining shares of the same value were submitted by Knapova, the server says.
If the shares belonged to someone else, which Babis claims, this so far unknown owner must have gained them exactly from Knotek or Knapova.
“However, there is not a single mention of a sale or transfer of the shares in the business register,” the server writes.
Knotek did not react to the server’s questions, while Knapova was on holiday.
