Prague, Jan 15 (CTK) – Czech Interior Minister Lubomir Metnar will not lift ex-detective Jiri Komarek’s confidentiality duty before Tuesday’s meeting of the lower house immunity committee as he does not want to tip the scales in the Capi hnizdo case on which he has no information, he told server Denik.cz on Monday.
He said the request the committee members addressed to him for lifting Komarek’s duty of confidentiality is rather vague.
Metnar said he has no information about the case in which the Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest) firm, formerly owned by current Prime Minister Andrej Babis (ANO), is suspected of having fraudulently drawn an EU subsidy in the late 2000s.
On Tuesday, the mandate and immunity committee will deal with the police request for the Chamber of Deputies to release ANO leader Babis and deputy chairman Jaroslav Faltynek for prosecution over the Capi hnizdo case.
The invitation of Komarek to the meeting was pushed through by deputies from ANO and the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement at the committee’s meeting last Wednesday.
Marika Vitnerova, from the Interior Ministry, said Metnar has decided not to comply with the deputies’ request after thoroughly studying it and consulting experts.
“A fundamental reason for his decision is the need to maintain objectiveness of the ongoing criminal proceedings and the Interior Minister’s impartiality in them,” Vitnerova said.
Metnar is a member of Babis’s minority government comprised of representatives of ANO and unaffiliated experts, which was appointed a month ago after ANO’s smooth victory in the general election.
According to previous information of daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD), Komarek told a court about an alleged link between Pavel Nevtipil, the police investigator of the Capi hnizdo case, and David Michal, a lawyer of controversial entrepreneur Ivo Rittig.
The lower house immunity committee’s deputy chairwoman Tatana Mala (ANO) said last week that Komarek had mentioned a link between Nevtipil and mafia.
The invitation of Komarek to the immunity committee’s forthcoming meeting met with stormy reactions of some of the committee members.
They pointed out that last month, a court found Komarek guilty, though not definitively, of having unrightfully accused Police President Tomas Tuhy of a “brutal leak of information.”
Komarek pronounced the words in 2016 within a dispute over a controversial police reshuffle, of which he was one of the main critics. He left the police over the issue and took a post at the Financial Directorate that falls under the Finance Ministry, which was headed by Babis at the time.
