Prague, July 20 (CTK) – Andrej Babis, Czech ANO chairman and former finance minister, and Marek Pribil, a former journalist of a daily controlled by Babis, will testify before the lower house commission enquiring into a suspected leak of information from open police files on Tuesday, MP Martin Plisek told CTK today.
Both Babis and Pribil have confirmed their presence at the Tuesday hearing, said Plisek (TOP 09), who heads the commission established in reaction to a recent scandal around audio recordings with Babis-Pribil conversations.
The hearing will also be attended by representatives of the Czech Bar Association.
Further officials, such as top police officers, state attorneys and some ministers, will probably be heard later.
“We are waiting for them to be relieved of their duty of confidentiality,” Plisek said.
The commission, initiated by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka’s Social Democrats (CSSD), has been tasked to check possible unlawful dealing with law enforcement bodies’ open files.
Its task is also to check whether information from these files was misused to influence political competition or destabilise democracy and the rule of law.
A leak of information from an open police file was suspected in connection with a Babis-Pribil recorded conversation that appeared on Twitter.
Babis repeatedly dismissed having received any such file from Pribil.
On another audio recording appearing on Twitter, Babis and Pribil discuss the publishing of materials compromising rival parties’ politicians.
At its first meeting earlier this week, the commission heard Deputy Police President Jaroslav Vild and Deputy Supreme State Attorney Igor Striz.
In a general debate on information leaks, both said they consider such cases human failures rather than a wrong system.
Babis left the post of deputy PM and finance minister in May. Before, in February, he transferred his giant Agrofert Holding, including national dailies Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) and Lidove noviny (LN), to trustee funds in compliance with a new conflict of interest law.
Babis’s ANO comfortably leads party popularity polls and is expected to win the October 20-21 general elections.
He said recently that he considers the establishment of the lawmakers’ commission a campaign targeted against him.
