Prague, Sept 15 (CTK) – The statements by former detective Jiri Komarek who has challenged the recent police shake-up have not been proved, Pavel Blazek (Civic Democrats, ODS), head of the Czech lower house commission of investigation that deals with the disputed shake-up, told journalists yesterday.
Within the elite police shake-up, the anti-corruption (UOKFK) and anti-mafia (UOOZ) police squads merged into the new National Centre against Organised Crime (NCOZ) in August. Former UOOZ detective Komarek claims that the aim of the restructuring was to paralyse the UOOZ that revealed suspicions related to police chiefs and the ruling Social Democrats (CSSD).
Komarek did not submit direct evidence that would prove his suspicions concerning institutions and individuals, Blazek said.
Komarek told Czech media that Police President Tomas Tuhy was suspected of “a brutal leak of information” and that the police shake-up was ordered by Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD) who wanted to avoid possible investigation of cases related to the CSSD during an election campaign.
Tuhy and Chovanec dismissed the allegations. Komarek and former UOOZ chief Robert Slachta left the police in protest against the shake-up.
The police restructuring caused a serious rift between the CSSD and the ANO movement that are both rivals and the major partners in the coalition government.
Some Czech media issued reports about the closed meetings of the commission and claimed that they received the information from somebody from the commission.
The commission dismissed this and it will ask the Supreme State Attorneys’s Office and the General Inspection of Security Corps (GIBS) to check how the media gained these pieces of information. Blazek indicated that state attorneys who had access to some of the files might have been the source.
The commission questioned GIBS director Michal Murin and counter-intelligence BIS former director Jiri Lang yesterday.
It would like to hear Justice Minister Robert Pelikan (ANO) and GIBS former director Ivan Bilek, but they have not been released of secrecy yet, Blazek said.
The shake-up’s critic Komarek is likely to talk to the commission again.
The commission has had seven meetings so far. It heard Tuhy and his deputy Zdenek Laube, Chovanec, Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO), Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman and the two high state attorneys, Ivo Istvan and Lenka Bradacova, among others.
kva/dr/rtj
