Prague, May 28 (CTK) – Jiri Kajinek, a contract killer who was released from prison based on a presidential pardon earlier this week, was a secret agent of the Czechoslovak prison service when he served his 7-year prison sentence in the late 1980s, daily Lidove noviny wrote.
Kajinek had been sentenced for numerous burglaries, for beating up a person and for bribing the police. The communist prison service selected him to be its agent in 1986 and he received the codename Kola in 1988.
Kajinek cooperated with the prison service, which was supervised by the justice ministry, and this had nothing to do with cooperation with the communist secret police StB, Svetlana Ptacnikova, director of the Security Forces Archives, told the paper.
Kajinek was to first of all gather information on planned escapes from prison and possible attacks against guardians. He was to also report political stances of the inmates. He told the prison service that one inmate was a homosexual drug addict who harassed the others and that another one had his neck tattooed.
Kajinek’s file shows that he was a valuable source for the prison service and that it took preventative and repressive measures based on his reporting, LN writes.
Kajinek was sentenced to life in 1998 for killing an entrepreneur and his bodyguard and attempting to kill another bodyguard in 1993. Some journalists challenged the verdict and said his guilt was not clearly proved. President Milos Zeman granted him pardon on May 23
Kajinek, before the killing a petty criminal, is probably the best-known Czech prisoner. He also gained fame by his spectacular escape from Mirov, the country’s toughest-security prison in north Moravia, in 2000. The police caught him after about six weeks at large. A film was made after the story of his escape.
So far, Zeman has granted seven pardons, but none of them related to a violent criminal act.
