Prague, Jan 4 (CTK) – Michal Mazanek has become new head of the Czech Office for Criminal Police and Investigation Service, which falls under the Police Presidium, David Schoen, the presidium´s spokesman, told CTK yesterday.
Mazanek has replaced Milan Pospisek, who resigned from the post after the case of suspected corruption of Olomouc Regional Governor Jiri Rozboril (Social Democrats, CSSD) broke out in October 2015.
Mazanek has worked with the police for 31 years. He has spent most of his career in Central Bohemia where he was regional police deputy director until the end of 2015.
In the past, he assisted in the investigation of cases such as the Orlik murders whose victims ended up in barrels on the bottom of the Orlik water reservoir, central Bohemia, in the 1990s.
Mazanek also used to head a team of investigators dealing with long unsolved murders. The team´s best-known success is the solving of a triple murder committed in the central Bohemian village of Klucov in 1990s. The criminal police caught the murderer after 13 years.
Led by Mazanek, the central Bohemian criminal police caught Viktor Kalivoda, dubbed “a forest murderer,” and also a three-fold murderer from Mukarov.
In 2011, Mazanek won the Police Officer of the Year award.
Pospisek resigned as national criminal police head in autumn, after three years in the post. He stepped down when information emerged that the police showed interest in him in connection with the Olomouc case.
In the Olomouc case, investigated by the police organised crime squad, the police in Olomouc, north Moravia, along with Governor Rozboril and a local businessman, are suspected of influencing and marring the investigation into selected cases.
