“There were some clues here.” The opposition is beating up the leadership of Prague, demanding the end of Hřiby
There were indications, but no evidence. This is how the Prague deputies describe the work of Deputy Mayor Petr Hlubuček. On Wednesday, the police accused one of the main figures of the STAN movement in the capital in connection with the management of the Prague Transport Company.
It was suspected that it had existed before, according to the opposition, which attacked the city leadership during Thursday’s council meeting.
“Something was said, but not so serious,” admits Hlubuček’s colleague from the Prague City Council and the number one mayor in the upcoming municipal elections, Petr Hlaváček. According to him, this is not a failure of the whole movement, but only of individuals, so he wants to continue cooperating with the Mayors.
STAN Hlubuček’s management suspended his membership during Wednesday evening and called on him to resign from the elected office. The politician demanded to be heard and resigned before Thursday’s meeting of Prague’s deputies.
Adam Scheinherr, a councilor for Prague, who has filed a criminal complaint on suspicion of corruption in the past, has no evidence of Hlubuček’s possible illegal actions.
According to Hlubuček’s nominee to the Board of Directors of Dopravní podnik, his suspicion was not that of his magistrate colleague.
“I was unhappy for two years and pushed the whole coalition, especially TOP 09, KDU-ČSL and STAN and especially Mr. Hlubuček and Mr. Pospíšil, to remove Mr. Matej Augustín from the board of directors, about whom I had a reasonable suspicion that the transport company he doesn’t do good things, “he describes his situation.
It is said that it was not surprising that Augustine was stuck in the police network. “Mr. Augustín was the nominee of Mr. Hlubuček,” he called.
“Absolute shock”
The head of the transport company, Petr Witowski, speaks similarly. He told reporters that he had a hunch that something was going on in the DPP because he had been called upon by the police to provide an explanation two years ago. “Like Adam Scheinherr, I was bound by secrecy,” he says, explaining why he did not admit anything publicly.
He called the police intervention itself an “absolute shock”. “The police investigation has a much wider scope than the criminal report from Mr Scheinherr Square,” he says.
Witowski claims that throughout the two years, the board of directors has always acted in such a way that all decisions are in favor of the company and that all the money spent with due diligence and not found for anything that would be of interest to the police. “If we knew, of course we’d go to the police.”
Call after resignation
According to opposition lawmakers, this is the biggest corruption cause in the city’s recent history, and the current rulers – especially Scheinherr’s deputy for transport – have the least political responsibility for the DPP. The Civic Democrats are even calling for Scheinherr and Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) to resign.
“There were some clues. A few months ago, I wanted to include the matter in the body’s deliberations, but the council refused, “Zdeněk Zajíček, head of the ODS councilors, told Seznam Zprávy.
“The Hlubuček case is the case of the STAN movement. Personally, the police did not contact me in this matter. I now have all the information I have only indirectly or from the media, “said the mayor.
Hřib added that the Pirates have two votes out of 15 on the transport company’s supervisory board and did not vote for the appointment of any of the current management on the DPP board. “They were not selected in open competitions, which is crucial for us.”
Hlubuček’s former colleague Hana Kordová Marvanová, who intends to run for the Together coalition in the upcoming elections, also joins the ODS. She left STAN precisely because she did not agree with Hlubuček and his way of “making politics”.
At Thursday’s council, Marvanová accused the politicians of the Prague coalition of not having the desire or political strength to stand up to Hlubuček and the “whisper” around the transport company. According to her, the whole system of how the city can control the DPP is wrong.
“As early as January 2020, I called for the resignation of Mr Witowski and Adam Scheinherr, who did not manage the situation, and the result was that Mr Witowski threatened to sue“She told the deputies, adding that she warned her warnings and scares.
The Hlubučka pirates, because they tolerated the city council, respected the choice of their coalition partner. “We were very different around Deputy Hlubuček, because there are rumors about him,” said pirate representative Viktor Mahrik. “But we never found anything out of the ordinary,” he added.
Hlubuček’s lawyer Lukáš Trojan said on Thursday that the List of Reports stated that he saw his client’s role in the case differently from what the media described. He referred to Wednesday’s press release, in which he stated: “I am authorized by the client to state that the description of the client’s actions contained in the resolution initiating the prosecution is indeed diametrically opposed to how the client and his role in the transport undertaking are based on leaked information. from the media, in a public voice. “
Actors of the “Hlubuček” case
- Michal Redl (48 years old): Zlín businessman, convicted in the past for fraud, collaborator of Radovan Krejčíř. His admission to prison averted his medical opinion that he was incapacitated. Since 2017, it has been around STAN politicians. According to the police, the head or one of the heads of the group. Police documents talk about the tasks that he handed out, distributed money from bribes, planned machinations with contracts.
- Petr Hlubucek (48): Deputy Mayor of Prague for STAN. He is charged with bribery and involvement in a criminal group. According to detectives, Hlubuček was one of the founders of the group, which systematically vacuumed, among other things, the orders of the Transport Company of the Capital City of Prague.
- Pavel Kos (49): A businessman convicted in the past of tax fraud, a close friend of Michal Redl. According to the police, he threatens machines with orders and was also involved in distributing money from bribes.
- Pavel Dovhomilja (41): An entrepreneur in IT, in at least one case, according to detectives, negotiated a bribe for the entire group for a specific IT contract of a transport company. He has not yet been charged, he was in Croatia at the time of the police raid.
- Zakaria Nemrah (32): The businessman, according to police, is threatening to distribute money from bribes.
- Matej Augustín (47): Member of the board of directors of a transport company and economic chief. According to investigators, Redlová and Hlubuček’s group purposefully appointed him to the management of this city company in order to manipulate contracts there and secure bribes. Then she shared with him. Police have not yet accused Augustine of being arrested at home in Slovakia.
- Ludek Stefffel (49): Head of the Information Technology Unit of the transport company. Police claim that they intervened with other defendants in specific contracts, such as those related to the operation of trams. So that they were commissions.
- Dalibor Kucera (35): Head of the legal department of the transport company. According to the police, he and other defendants tried to change the system of debt collection for unpaid fines. So that the executors, who would then be entrusted by the company with recovery, would pay the group money sideways.
- Martin Vejsada (51): Head of the Department of Technical Administration of Transport Company Facilities. Police mapped that the group around Redl was announcing what a hundred million business was going on and how it could be manipulated.
- Ivo Pitrman (51): Personal driver Michal Redl. And according to the police, also a messenger and protector of the group. In documents, the police state that he went to a bank, for example, to exchange money from bribes into euros. Or he provided regular inspections of apartments and cars against police wiretaps.
- Maroš Jančovič (44): Entrepreneur in IT, whose company supplied for a transport company. Detectives claim that Redl et al. they pushed him to send bribes regularly – otherwise the contract would end. Jančovič complied and won other orders as a result.
- Petr Adam (60): Sales representative of Komo-Com. According to the police, he promised a bribe of 500 thousand to Michal Zděnek, a member of the transport company’s supervisory board, for manipulating a half-billion contract to control cameras in the metro. However, Zdenek reported the offer to the police and cooperated with it.
- Jindrich Springl (59): Businessman. According to the police accusation, he influenced orders for a new radio system for a Prague transport company and for a camera system in the metro.
Update: we have added another statement from Mayor Hřiby.