Prague, Aug 22 (CTK) – Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikan (ANO) insists that the police request for the release of ANO chairman Andrej Babis for prosecution over the Capi hnizdo case is motivated by an effort to influence the October general election result, he told journalists on Tuesday.
Pelikan was speaking to them on his arrival in the Chamber of Deputies to testify before a lawmakers’ commission enquiring into leaks of information from police files.
In an interview with the latest issue of the Respekt weekly, Pelikan said the police could not have had any sensible reason to ask the lower house to strip Babis, a billionaire businessman, and ANO deputies’ group chairman Jaroslav Faltynek of their immunity of lawmakers just now.
“I don’t need any more facts except that the police did so ahead of the elections, after 1.5 years of investigation,” Pelikan told Respekt.
The only possible reason for the police to address their request before elections is an effort to influence the election outcome, he added.
Pelikan disagreed with Respekt publishing his interview.
Below the article, Respekt cited Pelikan’s words that he had expressed his personal views which he should not declare while in the post of minister.
On Tuesday, Pelikan told reporters that his words have sometimes been interpreted “rather inaccurately or even wrongly.”
“I said that with my knowledge of penal procedures, I cannot imagine any other reason for this concrete step, or the [police] request for [Babis’s] release, than an effort to influence the elections, on which I insist,” he said.
His words for Respekt have met with criticism, for example from Interior Minister and interim Social Democrat (CSSD) chairman Milan Chovanec, who asked Pelikan to explain his statement or apologise.
Chairman of the commission Martin Plisek (TOP 09) said after its meeting that the commission had not dealt with what Pelikan said because it had not found any connection with the relevant topic.
He said Pelikan’s statements were unacceptable and unsuitable and repeated that he should step down.
The lower house’s constitutional and legal committee will deal with the affair next week.
Babis and Faltynek, his aide, have faced a criminal complaint over the Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest) farm and congress complex since the late 2015.
At the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, the Capi hnizdo firm was a part of Agrofert, Babis’s giant chemical, agricultural and food processing complex. Afterwards, its owner changed through a chain of transactions that made the new owner hard to identify. Then it gained a 50-million-crown subsidy designed for small firms, which it could never gain as part of Agrofert. After few years, it rejoined Agrofert.
Babis was Czech finance minister from January 2014 to May 2017.
Supreme State Attorney Pavel Zeman and the chairman of the Prague Municipal Court, Libor Vavra, will be among the last witnesses to be questioned by the commission investigating the leaks from files in a week.
It also wants to question again the director of the GIBS police inspection, Michal Murin, and former reporter of the daily Mlada fronta Dnes Marek Pribil over the discrepancies in the provided testimonies, Plisek said.
