Prague, Oct 7 (CTK) – Martin Nejedly, adviser to Czech President Milos Zeman, has been granted a diplomatic passport from the Foreign Ministry in December 2013 when Jan Kohout was minister, the ministry told CTK Wednesday.
Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek confirmed to CTK that the Presidential Office applied for the diplomatic passport.
“The granting of a diplomatic passport is an absolutely standard issue. The adviser Nejedly is an official part of the president’s delegation,” Ovcacek said.
The information that Nejedly has a diplomatic passport was released by Wednesday’s issue of daily Lidove noviny (LN).
Former foreign minister Cyril Svoboda told LN that members of presidential delegations do not need diplomatic passports.
As a rule, only Foreign Ministry representatives and selected constitutional officials are entitled to a diplomatic passport, the paper writes.
The holders of diplomatic passports are cleared at airports more quickly than other travellers and they do not have to apply for visas where these are required.
Later Wednesday, Kohout told the public broadcaster Czech Television (CT) that he had issued the passport in keeping with law.
“I approved the application for the issuance of the diplomatic passport for Nejedly, presented by the Presidential Office, in keeping with law and diplomatic habits,” said Kohout, a member of the caretaker government headed by Jiri Rusnok (2013-2014), named by Zeman despite the disagreement of mainstream parties.
The opposition parties criticised the granting of the diplomatic passport to Nejedly in the Chamber of Deputies Wednesday.
“President Zeman is repeatedly showing us what he thinks about the rules of the game and the citizens of this country, and he is making fun of all of us,” Civic Democrat (right-wing opposition ODS) chairman Petr Fiala said.
Fiala said it is outrageous that the Foreign Ministry issued the passport for Nejedly.
Nejedly, known for his unusual ties to Russia, went with Zeman to the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Moscow in May when he accompanied him to his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. In September, Nejedly travelled with Zeman to the celebrations of the war’s end in China.
Nejedly was an executive secretary of the Czech branch of the Russian company Lukoil Aviation until June, when the company went into liquidation.
A Prague district court decided on June 17 that the company should pay 27.5 million crowns to the state over in an air fuel case. The verdict is not yet valid. Lukoil will appeal it, Nejedly said previously. He said the company will cover all its debts, including a possible penalty.
