Prague, Sept 30 (CTK) – Former Czech deputy labour and social affairs minister Vladimir Siska was sentenced to six years in prison for manipulating a public order for the payment of welfare benefits in favour of Fujitsu Technology on Friday.
The second defendant, former director of an Interior Ministry department, Miroslav Duda, received a three-year sentence suspended for five years.
This is the punishment that the prosecutor proposed.
The verdict has not taken effect. Both defendants plead not-guilty and they appealed against it.
The Prague Municipal Court also ruled that Siska had to pay the damages of 282 million crowns to the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry.
Duda is to repay 1.1 million crowns, the sum the ministry paid for the fines imposed by the anti-trust office.
The judge said Siska had put up the order without a tender instead of having chosen the deliverer in an open competition on the basis of the lowest bidder.
In 2011, with Duda’s knowledge, he used expediently a framework contract concluded by the Interior Ministry with Fujitsu Technology and valid since 2008.
This made Fujitsu gain the profit of 217 million crowns, the court ruled.
Siska is also being prosecuted over a contract with the IBM and blackmail of the agent of the firm OKsystem.
Siska criminal cases forced Labour and Social Affairs Minister Jaromir Drabek (TOP 09) to resign in October 2012.
