When the Czech domestic intelligence service BIS conducted an investigation into the controversial lobbyist and businessman Roman Janoušek back in 2007, its agents discovered that he was in contact with then-police president Vladislav Husák. In telephone conversations legally tapped by BIS agents, however, the two only ever spoke about arranging a meeting police.
“A report was produced about the relations between Janoušek and Husák in 2007, which was passed to superiors,” a source close to the Czech intelligence services was cited in Friday’s editions of Mladá fronta dnes (MfD), adding that the findings were subsequently passed to the National Security Authority (NBÚ), the agency responsible for conducting security checks on candidates for posts in the security and other state organs which involve responsibility for dealing with sensitive and classified information.
According MfD’s sources, acting on Janoušek’s and Husák’s arrangements over the phone to meet in person, BIS agents on three occasions went to the hotel where they had agreed to meet, but none of those times did the agents see the two in public areas of the hotel, reportedly leaving them to conclude that Janoušek and Husák were either in a private room or taking a sauna together. ‘I don’t remember what I spoke about with other people, with Mr. Janoušek, for example. However, if it were a matter of gravity I would certainly remember.’
Reacting to Friday’s report in MfD, Husák described the alleged meetings with Janoušek in a hotel room or sauna as a “fabrication,” nevertheless he did not deny having had contacts with Janoušek. “In 2007, I was in contact with many people, including you. And like I don’t remember the exact details of what we spoke about then, I don’t remember what I spoke about with other people, with Mr. Janoušek, for example. However, if it were a matter of gravity I would certainly remember,” Husák was cited by TV Nova on Friday.
This is not the first report of contacts between Janoušek and Husák. Last November paparazzi photographed the latter in Prague’s Municipal House in the company of former and current politicians from the Prague chapter of the Civic Democrats (ODS), including former Prague mayor Pavel Bém (ODS) — just days ago he resigned after the publication of wiretaps of conversations with Janoušek — along with former head of the Prague ODS chapter Boris Šťastný, and Janoušek himself, with whom Husák held a private conversation for about five minutes.
When questioned by journalists at the time, Husák claimed the meeting with “godfather” Janoušek and his allies in the ODS was simply a coincidence and that he had arrived slightly early at the Municipal House for an appointment in the evening and had no idea the Prague ODS politicians and their business associates were also holding a meeting there. “I turned up there before 7:00 p.m., I saw a couple of acquaintances, drank one coke with them and left.”
Following Janoušek’s hit and run incident in March when after drinking all night he reportedly purposely ran over a woman into whose car he had just crashed and fled the scene, Husák announced he was resigning as deputy police president for patrols — a position he has held for about a year — but categorically denied his decision was in any way connected with Janoušek’s drunk driving incident, or the revelation of dubious dealings between Bém and Janoušek. Husák will formerly leave his post as deputy police president at the end of May.
The revelation that BIS reportedly concluded in 2007 that the contacts between Janoušek and Husák posed a potential risk to state security and police confidentiality raise the question as to whether then-prime minister Mirek Topolánek (ODS) was informed about the intelligence agency’s findings. Topolánek has denied that he was in the know about BIS’ probes into Janoušek’s suspect dealings with ODS politicians, including Bém, but has categorically refused to attend hearings by the parliamentary commission for the inspection of BIS.
