Brno/Prague, Dec 3 (CTK) – Sharam Abdullah Zadeh, a Czech businessman of Iranian origin who has been prosecuted on suspicion of a huge tax fraud and who was released on bail in February, was Saturday accused of undue influencing of a witness after the police arrested him on Friday.
Zadeh’s lawyer Alena Kojzarova confirmed to CTK that her client was accused of being involved in the influencing of a witness. She said Zadeh was giving his testimony at present.
Zadeh’s representative Jan Jetmar said the accusation was absurd. It was a reaction to the complaints Zadeh filed against the prosecutor and the judge, he said.
After his arrest in Prague on Friday, detectives thoroughly searched his home and then they drove him to Brno for questioning.
Zadeh, who was released from custody on a record-high bail of 150 million crowns, is tried by the Brno Regional Court.
Along with accomplices, Zadeh is suspected of tax evasion related to the imports of hundreds of millions of litres of fuel from Slovenia and Germany to the Czech Republic in 2012-2013. The police consider him the chief organiser of a 2.5 billion-crown fraud, in which 65 companies used false tax returns and stooges.
Though National Organised Crime Centre (NCOZ) spokesman Jaroslav Ibehej did not confirm it, the police seemed to suspect five other people along with Zadeh of creating false evidence through which they tried to achieve an acquittal. Six people were accused of false accusation and involvement in organised crime.
($1=25.426 crowns)
kva/dr
