“It could have cost them a spot. The officials of the Castle were supposed to clarify the demolition, according to the deputies, they were threatened by their superiors | iRADIO
- The employees of the presidential office, who were supposed to come to the House of Representatives last year to clarify the circumstances of the extraordinary shredding, were intimidated, according to the deputies.
- “They were told that if they came to us for the committee, even if we sent them properly, it could cost them a place,” said Pavel Žáček (ODS), chairman of the committee for security, to Radiožurnál. Vice-chairman Šimon Heller from KDU-ČSL also confirmed the information.
- Chancellor Vratislav Mynář said that the inspection of the presidential office regarding the shredding was carried out by the designated institutions and the parliamentary security committee “does not belong among the institutions”.
- During the shredding, the employees of the Castle also destroyed the classified report about the explosion in Vrbětice, which the police wanted to obtain in order to check whether there were any unauthorized fingerprints on it. Chancellor Mynář or the president’s adviser Martin Nejedlý, for example, do not have the necessary vetting.
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When detectives came to Prague Castle last January for a secret report that Russian agents of the GRU intelligence service were behind the explosion in Vrbětice, they discovered that the document no longer existed.
Police officers from the National Center for Organized Crime (NCOZ) wanted to take fingerprints from the report to check whether the material had been tampered with by someone unauthorized, as Radiožurnál reported last January.
Three employees of the Office of the President of the Republic, headed by Vratislav Mynář, were subsequently to come to the House Committee on Security to explain the circumstances of how the report was destroyed. But none of them came to the House of Representatives despite the official invitation.
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Two MPs from the leadership of the committee have now described what really happened. “I invited three employees to one of the meetings. They were invited on a certain date and before the meeting took place, I learned from one of those people that they were told that if they came to us for the committee, we had sent them properly, so it could cost a place,” the head told Radiožurnál committee member Pavel Žáček from the ODS.
So did the deputy chairman of the committee Šimon Heller from the KDU-ČSL. “They should have been pressured not to testify before the security committee, which of course is totally unacceptable for a superior to tell a subordinate not to testify about what was or wasn’t happening. I can confirm the information that it was supposed to be a threat in terms of being fired from work,” Heller said.
It is not clear who specifically threatened them. According to Žaček, it was probably one of their superiors.
“I assume that it must have been a superior, if it was a subordinate, they probably don’t take it seriously,” he pointed out.
Castle Chancellor Vratislav Mynář wrote that “the inspection of the Office of the President of the Republic was carried out by the institutions designated for this purpose, and the office cooperated with them without reservation”.
“The committee of the Chamber of Deputies, some of whose members have also committed a number of false and biased statements, is not one of these designated institutions,” he said.
Two sessions
According to the invitation, three people were to come to the Chamber to explain the circumstances of the shredding. Director of the administrative section Jan Novák, director of the file service department Martin Halata and security director Lenka Nováková. Neither of them wanted to comment and they referred straight to the press department.
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“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, I absolutely will not talk to you, that’s why we have a press spokesperson,” replied Nováková when asked if someone intimidated her.
Deputies invited representatives of the president’s office to the committee’s February and March meetings last year. For example, before the meeting in February, a reply came from the Office of the President of the Republic half an hour before the meeting that no one would be coming. As he pointed out then server Seznamzpravy.czthe response to the invitation came undated and without a signature, which the MPs called scandalous at the time.
“This is contempt for the Chamber of Deputies and contempt for the Security Committee on the part of the Office of the President of the Republic,” said deputy Hubert Lang (ANO) at the time.
The committee subsequently issued a resolution that KPR “does not properly carry out the shredding process of classified documents and that KPR security director Lenka Nováková and KPR head Ing. are directly responsible for this state of affairs. Vratislav Mynar”.
Secret BIS report
Hundreds of documents were shredded by employees of Prague Castle the year before last fall, as Radiožurnál pointed out at the time together with the weekly Respekt. Chancellor Vratislav Mynář ordered the extraordinary shredding. It was started the day he issued the instruction. No one has yet explained why the Castle had to be destroyed so quickly.
After the publication of the article, the Castle only issued a short statement on the website, according to which it cannot order the head of the Office of the President of the Republic to shred individual classified files.
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“According to the ‘need to know’ rule (knowledge to the extent absolutely necessary – note Red.) he doesn’t have access to most of them. The duty of the head of the Office of the President of the Republic includes announcing the shredding and establishing a shredding commission made up of vetted persons by decision. This commission is guided by applicable legislation when disposing of classified documents,” the March statement said.
In the past, the castle has repeatedly denied that it would repeal the law. However, at the end of the year he was fined 60,000 crowns by the National Archives for shredding. According to the decision of the archivists, the biggest offense is that the Castle shredded the documents prematurely, including the classified ones. The Castle had already received a fine from the National Security Office.
However, the case is not over, deputies from the security committee want to deal with the shredding again. The hearing is scheduled for February.
“During February, we will be dealing with the matter of shredding again, because the committee has met three times and adjourned three times, and I would like us to somehow conclude and give a clear position on this,” Heller specified.
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