Prague, Feb 23 (CTK) – The Czech police unit in charge of protection of the president will be reinforced by 40 officers during the next five years because of rising security threats, daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Tuesday, citing a decision of the Central Emergency Team at the Government Office.
The Emergency Team is comprised of the ministers of defence and the interior, the police president and the military chief-of-staff.
Most recently, it ordered a toughening of security measures aimed to protect the president. They are to focus on Prague Castle, which is the presidential seat, and also the Lumbe villa in the castle’s vicinity, where Zeman lives with his wife, LN writes.
The police are to tighten the protection of all entrances to the Prague Castle complex as well as the entrance to the Presidential Office inside it.
The planned admission of 40 new officers means a 20-percent increase in the current 200-strong unit responsible for President Milos Zeman’s protection, the daily writes.
The plan is a reaction to the recent developments, where the police consider terrorism the biggest security threat.
Discussions about the protection of high-ranking officials flared up in 2014, when several ministries received letters with poisonous substances, and in 2015, when a group of artists climbed the roof of Prague Castle and replaced the presidential flag with giant red shorts to express their critical stance on Zeman, the daily writes.
Another police unit, which is in charge of protecting high-ranking officials, is to be reinforced by 130 officers, LN continues.
The unit protects the prime ministers, the heads of the two houses of parliament, the ministers of the interior, justice, foreign affairs and finance, as well as the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, the Government Office and a part of the Prague-Ruzyne airport.
The reinforcement of the two units will cost the state 330 million crowns by 2020, the paper says.
At present, the unit protecting Zeman has been personally and financially weakened after previous years of financial cuts, and its members are often forced to work overtime. Their overtime hours cost the state almost 40 million crowns last year alone, the daily writes.
The same problem is faced by the unit in charge of protecting the other top officials, it says.
Apart from recruiting officers, the training of the protective units will be upgraded. The Presidential Office plans to buy a shooting simulator, or a sort of a computer game showing the premises of Prague Castle and the presidential chateau in Lany in virtual dangerous situations, including terrorists, which the training officers must eliminate, the paper writes.
