Prague, Dec 19 (CTK) – The Prague High Court cancelled the verdict in the corruption case of former Social Democrat (CSSD) MP, minister and regional governor David Rath in October due to the use of wiretappings which the lower-level courts failed to justify adequately, server Euro.cz writes yesterday.
The Prague High State Attorney’s Office (VSZ) disagrees with the reasons the court have for cancelling the verdict. It considers the cancellation at variance with law and will challenge it at the Justice Ministry, VSZ head Lenka Bradadova said in a press release later yesterday.
The High Court in Prague scrapped the verdict behind the closed door on October 18 and returned it to the Regional Court for reappraisal. The court staff then declined to comment on the reasons for the decision before a written resolution on it is completed.
Now completed, the written resolution says the High Court unveiled a fundamental procedural mistake in the lower-level proceedings, which is the unlawfulness of the [used] wiretappings and the recording of telecommunication operations.
In addition, all suspects consider the submitted evidence unlawful also because it was decided on by judges who were territorially not empowered to do so, the High Court writes.
It writes that the District Court in Usti nad Labem, north Bohemia, failed to justify its order to apply police wiretappings.
Moreover, it failed to justify the ordered length of the wiretappings. Furthermore, a half of the court’s orders related to the case did not mention the ongoing criminal prosecution at all, the High Court said.
The district court in fact gave up its decision making power and refrained from justifying its wiretapping and telecommunication recording orders appropriately, the High Court said.
It wrote that the Regional Court should once again question Libor Gregor, a former police officer who reported the Rath affair several years ago. Gregor’s previous testimony was “evidently evasive and opaque,” it wrote.
The VSZ considers the High Court’s arguments hardly acceptable. Moreover, they considerably divert from the principle of predictability of the application of law and court verdicts, Bradacova wrote.
She criticises the High Court’s objections against formal flaws of the wiretapping procedure as “excessively formalistic,” regarding the previous repeated [similar] decisions made within the whole Czech judicial system.
Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman, too, said the High Court’s arguments are surprising and he cannot identify with them. Next steps are up to the Prague VSZ, he said.
The lower-level courts sentenced Rath, CSSD lawmaker (2006-2012), Central Bohemia governor (2008-2012) and health minister (2005-2006), to 8.5 years in prison and the forfeiture of some 20 million crowns for corruption in July 2015.
Rath was found guilty of bribery linked to the manipulated orders worth 16 million crowns. The verdict was based on police wiretappings and a confession by businesswoman Ivana Salacova.
Rath pleaded not guilty and appealed the verdict. He calls the trial political, saying the court ruled at variance with evidence.
Eleven people were charged in the extensive corruption case.
Along with Rath, Slovak businesswoman Lucia Novanska was given five years in prison and a penalty of 500,000 crowns for organising the manipulated orders.
The court dealt separately with the case of Petr Kott and his wife Katerina Kottova (formerly Pancova) who were each given 7.5 years in prison for plotting corruption and manipulations with contracts.
The court said an organised group linked to Pancova and Kott, manipulated public contracts placed by the Central Bohemia Region with the knowledge of Rath as regional governor.
($1=25.882 crowns)
