Prague, June 20 (CTK) – Robert Slachta, outgoing head of the Czech police anti-mafia unit (UOOZ), has asked for a meeting of the lower house’s security committee to be convoked so that he can inform the MPs on possible interconnection of the police and people from the criminal scene, Czech Television reported yesterday.
Slachta recently resigned from his post and announced his departure from the police as of July 1 in protest against the planned merger of the UOOZ and another elite national unit, the anti-corruption police squad (UOKFK).
The plan proposed by the police command and backed by Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) has caused a conflict between the CSSD and its government partner ANO, which criticises it as unprepared and suspicious.
ANO chairman and Deputy PM Andrej Babis said last week that the merger, aimed to oust Slachta, means the destruction of the last independent unit of police investigators and end to the fight against corruption and organised crime in the Czech Republic.
Chovanec dismissed the allegations and said the reform, fully in the power of the police command, will make the police’s work more effective.
Lower house security committee chairman Roman Vana (CSSD) and the committee secretary have left for a business trip to Macedonia yesterday.
Vana told CTK that he has no information about Slachta’s intention. Other members of the committee, too, said they know nothing about it.
Slachta told iDnes.cz server that he has informed his superior, former UOKFK unit head who is now UOOZ interim head after Slachta’s resignation, about his intention.
Now it is probably up to Komarek to take the next step.
“I consider this a last instance. I trust this body only,” CT quoted Slachta as saying about the lower house committee.
Ten years ago, the “Kubice report” caused turmoil on the Czech political scene. The report submitted to lawmakers by then UOOZ head Jan Kubice warned of intensifying influence of organised crime in the Czech Republic.
As part of the classified report leaked to the media shortly before the mid-2006 general election, the report caused annoyance mainly among the government CSSD.
Kubice later became interior minister in the next government completed by the CSSD’s election-winning arch-rival Civic Democrats (ODS).
rtj/dr/pv
