Pátek 29. března 2024, svátek má Taťána
130 let

Lidovky.cz

Another fundamental error in MP bug investigation

  17:39

Detectives investigating the eavesdropping of MP Kristýna Kočí’s apartment failed to take fingerprints from the bugging device

Kristýna Kočí is claiming authorship rights foto: © ČTKČeská pozice

Several weeks ago it emerged that the team of investigators led by detectives from the police’s anti-corruption unit investigating the bugging of MP Kristýna Kočí’s (non-affiliated, formerly Public Affairs - VV) apartment failed to secure footage from the security cameras in the building where the MP lives. Now police admit that they also failed to perform the most basic of investigative measures: They didn’t check the bugging device found there for fingerprints.

Initially police claimed that no fingerprints were found on the device: “Dactyloscopic [finger] prints were not taken from the device found for no print was discovered on the device,” police spokesman Jaroslav Ibehej announced.

Five days later, however, spokesman for the police’s anti-corruption unit, Roman Skřepek, gave a far more ambiguous account: “We reached the conclusion that the investigations conducted were sufficient, and the possible non-fulfillment of several measures did not damage the interests of the criminal investigation,” he said.

But it was the spokeswoman for the public prosecution service in Prague, Štěpánka Zenklová, who confirmed that the investigators had in fact failed to conduct the most basic of measures. “The fact that no fingerprints were taken is in no way fatal and wouldn’t have influenced the investigation,” she told the daily Hospodářské noviny (HN).

The police units asked by Hospodářské noviny about who was responsible for the basic oversight gave evasive responses:    

“The [investigation] team was headed by representatives of the anti-corruption unit and I can’t say anything more about the investigation. In answer to your direct question, I can only say that our department did not obtain the corpus delicti. We simply didn’t have it, and we dealt with the case on the basis of [external] expert opinions,” the spokesman for the anti-organized crime unit (ÚOOZ), Pavel Hanták, told HN.

The newspaper enquired with the Institute of Criminology. “In this case, we were only requested to provide consultations and then we produced the expert assessments requested. We cannot say what that was,” Petra Srnková from the Institute of Criminology said. According to HN’s information, the personnel from the anti-corruption unit who led the investigation have been handed a so-called “Negative Incident” notice — the lightest of reprimands — by the leadership of the unit.

Under surveillance

The bugging device was found in Kočí’s apartment shortly after she had revealed that Bárta had given her a cash payment of Kč 500,000, which she claimed was for loyalty and towing the de facto party leader’s line. Bárta, who founded the private security firm ABL, claims the money was a personal loan but has not provided any evidence supporting his claim. The scandal forced Bárta to quit his post as transport minister.

When a team of investigators first descended upon Kočí’s building after the bugging device was reported, they failed to secure footage from the building’s security cameras and when they returned, it had been erased. The building in which Kočí rents her apartment belongs to the Ministry of Regional Development.

The week before last the prosecution service and police announced they were suspending the investigation and that the only evidence found was the scent of Kočí and her boyfriend on the bugging device. “Other tracks from the listening device were not obtained,” the investigators said in the announcement.

Read more on the “cash for loyalty” scandal and subsequent crisis here and about the anti-corruption police here

Autor:

Šárka Hamrusová: Díky laktační poradkyni jsem si přestala myslet, že je chyba ve mně
Šárka Hamrusová: Díky laktační poradkyni jsem si přestala myslet, že je chyba ve mně

Šárka chtěla kojit. Chvíli to ale vypadalo, že se jí to nepodaří. Díky správně zvolené laktační poradkyni nakonec dosáhla úspěchu. Poslechněte si...