Prague, May 23 (CTK) – It is no good that Jiri Kajinek, is becoming a celebrity, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) told journalists today in reaction to President Milos Zeman’s having pardoned the convicted double murderer.
Kajinek is a negative figure, Sobotka said during the national congress of the CMKOS trade union umbrella organisation.
CMKOS chairman Josef Stredula said the pardon for Kajinek had harmed the trust in court decisions.
“I am not glad at Kajinek, a contract killer, becoming a celebrity also due to the pardon,” Sobotka said.
“The fewer such steps, the better for the calm in the Czech Republic and trust in the judiciary,” Stredula said.
A court in Plzen, west Bohemia, sentenced Kajinek to life in June 1998. He was convicted of shooting a businessman and his bodyguard dead in Plzen in 1993. Another bodyguard survived the attack.
A businessman hired Kajinek as a contract killer.
Kajinek, before the killing a petty criminal, is probably the best-known Czech prisoner. He also gained fame by his spectacular escape from Mirov, the country’s toughest-security prison in north Moravia, in 2000. The police caught him after about six weeks at large.
The cause celebre prompted film-makers to shoot a thriller also called Kajinek that was finished in 2010.
Kajinek pleads innocent and demands that his trial be reopened. All his previous efforts to this effect have been rejected.
Earlier today, Zeman, who is not convinced of his guilt, decided to grant him a pardon.
Most lawmakers were reluctant to comment on the affair, arguing that granting pardons was one of the presidential prerogatives.
The decision was condemned by Communist (KSCM) deputy Zdenek Ondracek.
Murderers were not among those to whom Zeman had promised to grant pardons, Ondracek said.
“As a former policeman I am against it. When he took up the office, he said whom he would pardon and whom not. Murderers were not among them,” he added
Before the 2013 presidential election, Zeman pledged not to grant any pardons except for strictly defined humanitarian cases.
Leader of the opposition Civic Democratic Party (ODS) Petr Fiala also evoked Zeman’s promise.
“Zeman said he would only grant pardons when taking into account serious health problems. This does not seem to be the case,” he added.
The timing and the atmosphere created by the Presidential Office in connection with the pardons suggest that Zeman is trying to deflect attention from the other problems of his, Fiala said.
Most deputies for TOP 09 believe that pardons should only be granted in exceptional cases, head of the TOP 09 and Mayors and Independents (STAN) group Michal Kucera said.
“Not to the people who demonstrably committed crime,” Kucera said.
Some 54 percent of Czechs agree with Zeman’s decision to pardon Kajinek, according to a poll conducted in mid-May.
