The Dosimeter case: influencing public contracts, property transfers and the resignation of Education Minister Gazdík | iRADIO
- Czech Radio’s investigative team devoted itself in detail to the Dosimeter case this year. It started this June with a police raid in Prague.
- The case also affected national politics. Due to contacts with the accused, the head of civil intelligence Petr Mlejnek, the minister of education from STAN Petr Gazdík or the deputy speaker of the chamber from ANO Jana Mračková Vildumetzová ended their positions.
- In total, the police charged 12 people in connection with the case, including former Prague councilor Petr Hlubuček (formerly STAN).
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Print
Copy the url address
Abbreviated address
Close
Businessman Michal Redl, connected to the Dosimeter case, is heading to court, which decided on his detention | Source: Profimedia
It was June 15 when detectives intervened in several places in Prague. Among other things, at the municipality or at the headquarters of the transport company.
According to criminologists, an organized criminal group, which was supposed to have been founded by businessmen Michal Redl and Pavel Kos and now the former deputy mayor of Prague, Petr Hlubuček, put their people in charge of this city company. It is said that they called each other Mišák (Redl), Kosák (Kos) and Slepičák (Hlubuček).
Misák, Slepičák, Guči and Maťo. Read how the group around councilor Hlubuček worked
Read the article
“They founded an organized criminal group focused on criminal activity consisting in the long-term unauthorized acquisition of funds from entities providing a transport company as a public contractor of supplies, services and construction work,” he said in the help of Radiožurnál in June, describing the functioning of the group.
According to detectives, the group influenced three large public contracts, wanted millions in bribes. He needs five million, for example, for the then member of the management of the transport company – also prosecuted – Matej Augustín to receive a contract for the reconstruction of the Holešovice metro area.
Two apartments and a villa
In total, criminal investigators are prosecuting twelve people in the case. Among other things, Radiožurnál looked into their property and found out from the real estate register that the prosecuted former councilor Hlubuček got rid of all his real estate in the Czech Republic – a villa in Lysolágy, an apartment in Masná Street in the center of Prague and a unit in an apartment complex in Holešovice. During the year, he transferred them to his partner Jiří Karvánek.
As can be seen from the contracts filed in the land registry, preparations for the transfer of the property began already in the second half of February. Shortly before that, there were reports in the media that a politician was interested in the council.
Hlubuček is officially without property. They transferred the properties to a partner, who sold most of them after the raid
Read the article
The chief analyst of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International, Marek Chromý, said at the time that the transfers act as an attempt to get assets out of the reach of the police.
“The timing of the transfer of Mr. Hlubuček’s property to his partner, either within days of the publication of the first information that he is wanted by the police, or a few hours after his arrest, is purposeful, i.e. to avoid the property. It is then a question for law enforcement authorities as to how much Mr. Karvánek was or was not informed about the activities of his partner,” Chromý told Radiožurnál.
Karvánek was not accused of anything in the case and did not want to comment on the real estate transfer.
Dividing millions
Most recently, in connection with the case, Radiožurnál reported that the detectives had expanded the charges against the four businessmen they are prosecuting in the case. They are suspected of sharing a bribe of two and a half million.
“Michal Redl, Pavel Kos and Pavel Dovhomilja are accused of the ongoing crime of accepting a bribe, Maroš Jančovič of committing the ongoing crime of bribery,” said one of the two sources who confirmed the information to Radiožurnál in mid-November.
The police expanded the charges in the Dosimeter case: businessmen shared 2.5 million from the envelope
Read the article
According to the police, businessman Maroš Jančovič was supposed to hand over the bribe to Michal Redl and Pavlo Dovhomilj in June 2021 directly in his office in Prague 4 at Uniprog Solutions, where he served as a member of the board of directors.
According to their original agreement, the envelope should have contained three million crowns, the police found out. But when the entrepreneurs Redl, Dovhomilja and Kos opened the envelope, they discovered that it actually contained two and a half million. They agreed to split the money.
All the accused deny guilt, and ex-Radio Hlubuček recently announced to radio Zet that he will defend himself. “I reject the accusations in the Dosimeter case as they are put against me, and I am convinced that I will clear my name,” said Hlubuček.
Gazdík, Mlejnek and Vildumetzová
The case also touched the highest levels of politics. At the end of June, President Miloš Zeman accepted the resignation of the Minister of Education from STAN, Petr Gazdík, who, according to the media, met with businessman Redl in a secure office, spent the weekend together in the Alps and communicated via an encrypted phone.
“I have decided to resign from the position of Minister of Education on June 30. Although I do not feel guilty of anything, not even in terms of substance, let alone criminal law. However, my contacts with some people also cast a shadow on the STAN movement. I do not want to shake the government or the coalition on the threshold of the presidency of the European Union,” Gazdík said on his Twitter account on June 19.
Civil intelligence chief Mlejnek resigns after criticism. ‘The pressure on him was enormous,’ assesses the Austrian
Read the article
The head of the Office for Foreign Relations and Information, Petr Mlejnek, also left at the end of August due to contacts with Redl. Because of this and also the government’s progress in solving the energy crisis, the government faced an unsuccessful vote of no confidence at the beginning of September, which was initiated by the opposition movements SPD and ANO.
Its chairman, Andrej Babiš, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Petr Fial in mid-August, in which he requested the dismissal of Minister of the Interior Vít Rakušan (STAN). He stated that the scandal surrounding the appointment of Mlejnek has no period in the history of the Czech Republic and requires an immediate response. “The solution to the situation is in your hands at this point. I believe that you will manage to resolve the situation so that the vote of no confidence in the government does not take place at all,” the former prime minister wrote.
However, the Dosimeter case ultimately had an impact on the movement that he himself leads. At the end of September, Jana Mračková Vildumetzová (ANO) resigned from the position of Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. She was the target of criticism due to the fact that accused businessman Zakaría Nemrah was a best man at her wedding and is also the godfather of her child.
“From the first day I repeat that he was my husband’s friend. I didn’t deal with any work matters with him. He was always everywhere at my husband’s invitation and at the time he was at our wedding and our christening, I had absolutely no idea and never could have imagined that he would be pursued by the police. I have absolutely nothing to do with the Dosimeter case,” she said when announcing her resignation.
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Print
Copy the url address
Abbreviated address
Close