The Czech Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement discusses its affairs with entrepreneur Michal Redl, who was previously prosecuted in two cases involving Radovan Krejčíř, an infamous businessman who escaped abroad but has received a high prison sentence in South Africa, Czech Radio reported yesterday.
Prague, Feb 27 (CTK) – The Czech Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement discusses its affairs with entrepreneur Michal Redl, who was previously prosecuted in two cases involving Radovan Krejcir, an infamous businessman who escaped abroad but has received a high prison sentence in South Africa, Czech Radio reported yesterday.
Redl’s prosecution was halted at the time due to a medical report confirming his serious mental illness.
STAN is an opposition movement represented in both houses of Czech parliament.
STAN chairman Petr Gazdik has admitted the party’s contacts with Redl, as have its other representatives such as Stanislav Polcak, a MEP, and Miroslav Adamek, the mayor of Zlin, Redl’s home town in south Moravia.
Last September, Polcak sent an e-mail to Redl on behalf of STAN’s Prague officials, asking him to recommend personnel nominations for important posts at the Prague City Hall and in the city-run companies.
Polcak told Czech Radio that STAN is only establishing its positions in Prague, which is why he has consulted many people on the personnel filling of some important posts.
The police said Redl illegally siphoned off money from the Ceska sporitelna saving bank, together with Krejcir, in 2002 and assisted in an half-billion-crown tax evasion on the part of the M5 company.
Doctors then said Redl was too ill to be capable of following the criminal proceedings. Some police officers called this an expedient excuse.
Krejcir, on his part, fled from the Czech Republic in 2005, making his secret getaway during the police search of his luxurious villa near Prague.
Czech court sentenced him to 10.5 years in absentia for large-scale frauds including the two cases involving Redl.
In early 2016, Krejcir was sentenced to many years in prison for kidnapping and torture. Besides, he faces trials for several other suspected crimes, including an attempted escape from prison.
Earlier this month, a court in Johannesburg started to deal with a case in which Krejcir is one of the suspects who murdered a Lebanese drug dealer three years ago.
($1=25.468 crowns)
