Prague, June 22 (CTK) – The Czech police unit fighting organised crime (UOOZ) launched the criminal prosecution of five people suspected of fraud in connection with the photovoltaic power station in Sevetin, south Bohemia, on Monday, the Prague High State Attorney’s Office wrote on its website yesterday.
State attorney Petra Ullrichova wrote that the suspects faced up to ten years in prison if found guilty. No further information will be provided on the case now, she said.
The Sevetin Solar Park is the third largest photovoltaic power plant in the Czech Republic, with the nameplate capacity of 29.9 megawatt. It has been operating since 2010 and is owned by the state-controlled power utility CEZ.
According to the public Czech Radio (CRo), the suspects in the Sevetin case are former CEZ manager Martin Zeman, CEZ manager Oldrich Kozusnik and three representatives of contractors, Milan Bednar and Radek Machacka, from the Mapro company, and Renata Prikrylova, from IES Recycling.
CEZ spokesman Ladislav Kriz told CTK that the firm had no information about the prosecution.
The weekly journal Respekt wrote previously that 100 million crowns disappeared during the construction of the Sevetin Solar Park. Detectives allegedly froze this sum in the bank accounts of IES Recycling because of the suspicion that CEZ paid it for work that has never been done.
Mapro was the other guarantor of the project, Respekt wrote. Mapro’s three former owners claimed that tens of millions were sent from Mapro to other firms, including a Prague law office in which former interior minister Ivan Langer has been working since 2010, the journal wrote.
The Lidovky.cz news server wrote last December that UOOZ members took documents on Sevetin from two CEZ subsidiaries. Kriz said then the police were not interested in any of the present managers of CEZ.
($1=23.923 crowns)
