Prague, June 28 (CTK) – Czech Chamber of Deputies established on Tuesday a commission to investigate the reshuffle of elite national police bodies that may start working on Friday if its chairman is elected.
The lower house will select its seven members on Wednesday. The results of the investigation to be conducted by the commission are be published by the end of October.
The commission will deal with various suspicions relating to the behaviour of the police headquarters, detectives from the elite organised crime team and state attorneys from the State Attorney’s Office in Olomouc, north Moravia, which clashed in a dispute over the police restructuring.
Doubts about the task of the commission were expressed by the deputies for Finance Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO (a member of the three-party coalition government along with the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL).
They wanted the members of the Chamber of Deputies to hear at first the deputies of the UOOZ organised crime team and the Olomouc State Attorney’s Office. However, the demand was rejected by the rest of the deputies.
In the debate, ANO deputy Josef Hajek (ANO) said there was a fight in which the Social Democrats wanted to dominate the police.
Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD), who has backed the police merger of the elite organised crime team and corruption team, supported the establishment of the commission.
“If we want to uncover the truth, this is a way,” he added.
UOOZ head Robert Slachta has resigned in protest against the restructuring.
Some elite police officers have suggested that the real aim of the reshuffle is to get rid of Slachta and to dissolve the unit.
