Prague, Feb 2 (CTK) – The campaign of Finance Minister Andrej Babis and his ANO movement against the Czech police reform last year was based on untrue information and slander, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) said on Facebook on Thursday.
Babis’s theories collapsed like a house of cards on the basis of the final report of the parliamentary commission investigating the reform that was released on Thursday, Sobotka said.
He said Babis should apologise to Police President Tomas Tuhy and Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD) for his statements about them.
It was Chovanec who had given consent to the reform.
The results of the commission that its members adopted unanimously are clear, he added.
“The statements about ‘a brutal information leak’ by the police president has not been confirmed. The speculations about the police shakeup being implemented under political pressure and based on s political assignment with the aim to remove Robert Slachta as head of the Squad for Uncovering Organised Crime (UOOZ) were not proved either ,” Sobotka wrote.
The core of the reform was the merger of the UOOZ with the corruption team into the National Centre against Organised Crime (NCOZ).
“The construct about a conspiracy against the UOOZ, spread by ANO and the media owned by Agrofert collapsed like a house of cards,” Sobotka said.
Babis’s Agrofert holding owns the Mafra media house, publishing two daily papers, as well as a radio station and a music TV channel.
The debate on the police reshuffle was a “theatre performance” directed by Babis, CSSD politicians said after the lawmakers’ commission of investigation released its final report.
Babis did not hesitate to gamble with the police trustworthiness, CSSD deputy group head Roman Sklenak tweeted.
Pavel Blazek (Civic Democrats, ODS), head of the commission of investigation, read the final report in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday.
The police reform did not aim to remove Slachta, restrict the police squads’ activities or prevent the investigation into certain cases, Blazek said.
The police reform caused a rift between the major government parties, the Social Democrats (CSSD) and ANO, last year. ANO said Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD) thereby intended to destabilise the police, and it threatened with leaving the government coalition, but changed its mind eventually.
In reaction to the commission’s report , Chamber of Deputies chairman Jan Hamacek (CSSD) said the police reform was neither expedient nor unlawful, which Babis claimed.
Human Rights Minister Jan Chvojka (CSSD) is of the view that Babis abused the police for his own profit.
“A nontraditional politician with nontraditional manners,” Chvojka wrote about Babis.
