Former Prague mayor Svoboda is innocent in the Opencard case, the court ruled
The Board of Appeal of the Prague High Court concluded that Svoboda’s act was not a criminal offense.
“I have been dealing with this case for eight years now. This seems to me to be a really long time in the twenty-first century, “Bohuslav Svoboda told the judges, who will be the leader of the Spola coalition candidate (ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL) in the autumn Prague municipal elections, and thus also a candidate for mayor.
In the case of Opencard, several former representatives of the capital – including another former mayor Tomáš Hudeček (TOP 09) – faced prosecution on suspicion of breach of duty in the administration of foreign property and violation of regulations on competition rules.
I want to continue in Blanca and finish the circuit, says the candidate for mayor of Svoboda |
According to the indictment, in 2012 they unjustifiably favored the then owner of the rights to Opencard, Haguess, when the municipality approached it as the only one in the negotiated procedure without publication.
The Prague City Court was first found guilty by the defendants. Finally, after a change of prosecutor and judge, they heard a acquittal. According to him, city politicians did not decide arbitrarily, but on the basis of expert opinions. They also had to build on the activities of the previous representation of the capital. The beginnings of Opencard fell into the period of the activity of the mayor of the ODS, Pavel Bém.
The original judge Alexander Sotolář faced disciplinary lawsuits for distorting the minutes of the main trial due to the case. The original supervisory public prosecutor Dagmar Máchová is then prosecuted in another case for abuse of power.