Wild 1990s: Prague had Jonák, Prostějov Dinner
The 1990s in Prostějov definitely did not end until 2019. This happened at a time when, after a year of renewed operation, the Relax disco club in Komenského Street was definitively closed. Jiří Večeř, who was a widely visited company at the time after the Velvet Revolution, owned and was convicted of organizing the murder of a LTO trader. After many years, the same man was released again and was behind the launch of the renewed Relax, which, however, lasted less than a year. At the same time, it can be said about Jiří Večeř that a similar development as the owner of the well-known Prague Discoland, Sylvia Ivan Jonák, about which he discussed the second part of the audience hit The Nineties.
RThe six-part television miniseries Ninetyátka, which describes the investigation of key cases of the 1990s in our country, aroused an extraordinary audience interest. As in the successful Cases of the 1st Department, its creators bet on the authenticity of police procedures. Apart from them, however, their success was undoubtedly due to nostalgia for the wild and relaxed 1990s, when our country suddenly became a “land of unlimited possibilities” in both good and evil. Probably the second volume dedicated to the life of Ivan Jonák aroused the greatest response. The mobster, who before the revolution subsisted as a garbage man, bouncer, villain or taxi driver, opened Discoland Sylvie in the early 1990s, which earned him a high-profile life for a short time. The fat curl changed mistresses like socks, which, among other things, contributed to his breakup with his wife Ludwika. When the woman began claiming part of Discoland, Jonak had her murdered. At the same time, he himself escaped death by a hair. In July 1994, a bomb exploded under his force, and a day later he was shot. The bullet went through both faces and knocked out all his lower teeth. However, his time for freedom was running out, he was taken into custody after the holidays of the same year. He was later convicted of murdering his wife and served a total of 12 years.
Jiří Večeř’s story is strikingly similar to Jonák’s in many respects. He, too, always drowned in money just as much on the edge of the law, and especially as he ran a famous disco. Come with Jonák for a long stay in the crime scene. Jiří Večeř was convicted of his involvement in the murder of light oil trader Marek Lehký. The man, who at the time owed many people tens of millions of crowns, was brought to the river Moravia in 1995, and an explosive was attached to his body, which was detonated at a distance. Dinner himself hid for some time, after his arrest he decided to confess to this act. After his release in 2016, an attempt was made to prove two more murders, but he did not succeed.
Like Ivan Jonák, Jiří Večeř also tried to follow up on the once glorious period of his disco after his release. Unlike Jonák, he finally succeeded in 2018 when he joined Petr Hrůza. However, the renewed Relax operated in the same premises for less than a year, only confirming the saying that it is simply not possible to enter the same river. It has remained closed ever since. After his release, Ivan Jonák “enjoyed” only 666 days at large. Eventually, he died alone and without property in his apartment in Kobylisy, Prague, due to health complications associated with diabetes. Jiří Večeř, who could only dream of his previous expensive way of life, also found himself in a difficult situation. Nevertheless, the former soldier, unlike Jonák, obviously had a much tougher root and perhaps enough caution not to repeat his stay behind bars soon. Nevertheless, he has not yet fulfilled the promise he made to Večerník years ago that, after his definitive release from prison, he would provide a comprehensive interview that would reveal the mafia behind the scenes of the then Prostejov “velvet rich”. The success of television “Ninety” testifies to the fact that there is still interest among readers.