Brno, Sept 8 (CTK) – Czech lobbyist Marek Dalik attempted to sophistically gain a sum which exceeds almost 100 times the large-extent profit as defined by the penal code in the Pandur case, Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman said in his petition for an appellate review CTK has at its disposal.
Zeman wrote that Dalik failed to gain the money only thanks to the ethical conduct of the other side and that he harmed the reputation of the Czech Republic abroad, which makes it impossible to impose on him a punishment that is below the level of the legal rate.
The Municipal Court in Prague sentenced Dalik to five years in prison for abetting a bribe.
The case is connected with the purchase of Pandur vehicles for the Czech military from the Austrian Steyr firm.
The High Court in Prague, however, re-qualified the act as an attempted fraud and gave Dalik four years in prison even though the rate for the given crime is five to 10 years in prison.
Dalik, who started to serve the sentence last week, has also filed a petition for an appellate review. He denies any wrongdoing.
The case will now go to the Supreme Court.
The High Court justified the exceptional lowering of the punishment saying Dalik had a clean criminal record and that the attempted fraud was not completed.
The court also said that according to the indictment, Dalik asked for an astronomic sum, or almost half a billion crowns, but that such commissions in similarly large deals are common.
Zeman disagrees with this argument. He said it was no commission, but criminal dealing.
“The convict only attempted to gain money in a fraudulent way,” Zeman says in his petition for an appellate review.
Zeman wrote that not even the fact that Dalik did not eventually get any money is no reason to lower the punishment.
“(…) from his point of view, he did everything he considered necessary to gain the financial means and the act was not only accomplished thanks to the ethical behaviour of other presons who did not accept his conduct,” Zeman wrote, pointing to the high social harmfulness of the deed.
The police started investigating Dalik, former adviser to former prime minister Mirek Topolanek (Civic Democrats, ODS) based on the testimony of a former employee of Steyr, the maker of the Pandurs, Stephan Szcucs.
He said in March 2011 that Dalik asked for a bribe of 18 million euros (half a billion crowns) at an informal meeting in a Prague restaurant in November 2007, pretending having close ties with representatives of the Czech government and being able to influence their decision-making and the Pandurs order.
The court sent Dalik to prison for cheating when pretending that he is able to influence the order by which he attempted to get money from the armament makers.
On the contrary, it was not proven that he asked for the bribe at the request of anyone from the government.
The purchase of Pandurs for 20.8 billion crowns was approved by the left-wing government of Jiri Paroubek (Social Democrats, CSSD) in 2006. At the end of 2007, Topolanek’s government said Steyr had violated the conditions of the purchase and it withdrew from it. In 2008 Topolanek’s government put up a new tender, within which the Czech army bought 107 Pandurs for 14.4 billion crowns in 2009.
