Prague, June 20 (CTK) – Two Czech government coalition parties, the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and ANO, want the National Security Council (BRS) to meet as soon as possible and discuss the police, not only in late July which PM Bohuslav Sobotka has decided, public Czech Television (CT) said yesterday.
The BRS was to meet on Wednesday, but Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) adjourned it by one month yesterday, CT said.
“I do not understand it. We, the KDU-CSL, will insist on that the National Security Council meet as soon as possible, this week at the best,” Marian Jurecka, KDU-CSL first deputy chairman and agriculture minister, told CT.
He said the situation requires this.
Finance Minister Andrej Babis, chairman of the ANO movement, also said the BRS should meet as soon as possible.
“The situation of the Czech police and the Squad for Uncovering Organised Crime (UOOZ) is a threat,” Babis wrote on Twitter and added that it should be dealt with quickly also with regard to citizens’ trust in the police.
Babis wrote that Sobotka has adjourned the BRS meeting from June 22 until July 20.
The tension in the police has been provoked by the prepared restructuring. Its opponents say it aims at disintegrating the UOOZ, whose head Robert Slachta has already resigned as from June 30 because he disagrees with the steps.
Jiri Komarek, head of the UOOZ branch in Ostrava, north Moravia, told CT yesterday that Police President Tomas Tuhy is suspected of a “brutal” leak of information in investigation into economic crime.
Komarek said he will submit evidence proving that the restructuring has aimed at breaking up the UOOZ.
Tuhy has dismissed this and said he considers the Ostrava branch’s procedure to be an “unprecedented and expedient pressure” by Slachta and his supporters.
Slachta wants to inform the security committee of the Chamber of Deputies about the possible connection between the police and people from the criminal environment.
