Prague, Jan 3 (CTK) – Frantisek Benda, who was Czech environment minister in Vaclav Klaus’s government in 1992-96, died on January 1, aged 72, the vicariate of Prachatice, south Bohemia, where he served as a deacon in the past years, has announced on its web page.
Before he joined the government, Benda was deputy mayor of Ceske Budejovice, south Bohemia, for two years.
Benda was ordained as a deacon in 2011 and he performed a regular spiritual service for the Prachatice vicariate until his death.
During his term at the Environment Ministry, environmental activists from the Friends of the Earth imposed the Oil Guzzler mock-prize on him.
Before the fall of the communist regime, Benda was a senior scientific worker at the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Ceske Budejovice in 1983-90.
He was also a lecturer at the Inorganic Chemistry Chair of University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, from which he graduated, majoring in chemistry.
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