Prague, May 4 (CTK) – It would be scandalous if the audio recordings in which Czech Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) speaks with a journalist of his former daily about a material prepared on political rivals were authentic, Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) head Pavel Belobradek said on Thursday.
After a meeting with President Milos Zeman, Belobradek said people’s mutual wiretapping is tasteless and unethical.
“It is serious. Unless this is a fake and if he (Babis) really said what is there, it would prove that what he was telling us, the government coalition partners and the public, all the time is a lie,” Belobradek said.
He referred to Babis’s claiming for a long time that he does not interfere with his former media.
Unless the recordings are faked, it is a scandal, Belobradek added.
He also denounced the making of the recordings.
“I consider it tasteless if people illegally wiretap one another. It is tasteless and unethical unless this was a material that leaked from wiretappings made by the secret services and police,” Belobradek said.
Babis has filed a complaint over the recordings, whose authenticity he has not refuted as yet.
He claims he has not heard them.
In the recordings, Babis discusses articles prepared for the media that belonged to him in the past.
The man with whom Babis was speaking said he had some prepared materials about Health Minister Miloslav Ludvik and Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (both Social Democrats, CSSD).
They were deliberating whether to release the information later this year, before the general electdion to be held on October 20-21.
Mafra said on Wednesday it has decided to dismiss the Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) editor featuring in the audio recordings even though it has doubts about them.
MfD just as Lidove noviny (LN) belongs in the Mafra media group which is part of Agrofert holding. Babis owned the holding until February, when he transferred it to trustee funds after a conflict of interest law took effect.