Prague, July 20 (CTK) – The premises of the Prague Castle, which includes the presidential seat, will be guarded by a firm of General Ludek Kula, who plans to run for senator for the anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement in the autumn, for four years, daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Friday.
The Prague Castle Administration and the Indus firm signed the contract worth 16 million crowns in June.
The majority owner of Indus is the Lenia company that offers security systems and cooperates with the Moneta and Ceska sporitelna banks, T-Mobile mobile services operator and several ministries, the paper writes.
But Moneta Money Bank spokesman Jakub Svestka told CTK that the bank stopped cooperating with Lenia in 2013.
LN writes that one of Lenia’s owners was businessman Jiri Kubin. Kubin was shot dead in Prague in 2006 and was allegedly close to the late underworld boss Frantisek Mrazek, also shot dead in 2006.
Kula, 53, headed the Czech Prison Service in 2005-2010. He was dismissed over controversial contracts. In 2008, the police accused him of stripping the state of nearly 20 million crowns by signing a disadvantageous contract and of an overpriced purchase of real estate. A state attorney later cancelled Kula’s prosecution in both cases.
Kula was an aide to justice minister Helena Valkova (ANO; in office 2014-15).
LN writes that Kula contributed 60,000 crowns to his political campaign before the Senate election and 150,000 crowns were sent to his account by Indus.
The SPD of rightist populist Tomio Okamura said it would release the names of its candidates for senators at the end of July.