Czech Police, having recently obtained fresh evidence showing that a civil activist who suffered a brutal attack last summer had been followed by the private security firm ABL founded by Public Affairs (VV) paymaster Vít Bárta, have reopened the investigation into the attack.
The daily Mladá fronta dnes (MfD) reported Friday that the police’s anti-organized crime unit (ÚOOZ) now have photographs and a case file showing that between February and September 2010 ABL conducted surveillance of Jiří Štyler, head of the pressure group Movement For Prague 11 and a harsh critic of the leadership of the district in south Prague — which had given ABL lucrative contracts, including for conducting “special detective activities.”
Štyler was attacked by an unidentified assailant in June 2010 who administered an electric shock, presumably with a tazer, and then kicked him repeatedly when on the ground. Štyler suffered a concussion, lost several teeth and required stitches to the head.
MfD obtained a copy of the file showing that Štyler was under surveillance and followed by ABL private detectives from the early hours of the morning before he woke until he went to bed. The ABL file reportedly shows that the firm’s detectives also shadowed Štyler’s fellow activists, including Ladislav Kos, photographing them and recording their car registration numbers.‘It feels to me like under communism; as if we were doing something against the state. In fact we meet as a civil movement and discuss what is good and what is bad in our area.’
The detectives wrote detailed descriptions of Štyler’s movements, including everyday tasks such as shoveling snow from the pavement in front of his house, and noted what clothes he was wearing. The surveillance operation of Štyler was codenamed “Baker” after Štyler’s profession baking cakes and seet pastries.
“It feels to me like under communism; as if we were doing something against the state. In fact we meet as a civil movement and discuss what is good and what is bad in our area,” Štyler told MfD.
Dubious contracts for ABL
Štyler for several years now has tried to shed light on numerous financial decisions by the Prague 11 administration. These include 11 contracts given to ABL worth almost Kč 31 million in total since Dalibor Mlejnský (Civic Democrats, ODS) became mayor of the district in 2006.
In September 2010, MfD obtained documents from a source inside ABL showing that in 2006 and 2007 the firm’s operatives followed politicians from the Prague 11 administration, with particular attention paid to former Prague 11 mayor Marta Šorfová, who although a fellow ODS member, was a bitter rival of Mlejnský.
In October 2010, Mlejnský lodged a criminal complaint against unknown perpetrators in connection with the surveillance by ABL and later — together with the leader of the ODS branch in Prague 11, Jiří Janeček — told various media that they had documental proof that candidates to the district assembly for the TOP 09 party, Stanislav Urbánek and Jan Vašíček, ordered the surveillance. Both men refuted the claims as a constructed lie and said they would consider lodging a criminal complaint.
This January, MfD reported that it had obtained internal ABL documents showing that the client who ordered the surveillance services was stated as “P11” — presumably a reference to Prague 11.
Reward for Vít Bárta?
Unperturbed by the assault on him last summer, Štyler and the Movement For Prague 11, together with other opposition
Prague 11 awarded ABL a contract worth Kč 1.6 mln per year to run an anti-corruption hotline.
representatives in the district’s assembly, mostly from TOP 09, have continued to question spending and financial transactions by the Prague 11 administration, including the sale of public lands at knock-down prices.
They also challenged contracts given to ABL including around Kč 9 million to verify the identity and circumstances of residents living in municipal housing in the district, a process called “passportization” (“pasporizace”) by ABL and the district’s officials.
“The first stage of the passportization was four times overpriced, and the second stage even 10 times overpriced,” Ladislav Kos of Movement For Prague 11 told Czech Television (ČTV) in July this year. ABL reportedly received Kč 6,700 for each apartment checked. “We have grounds to conclude that the whole contract was a reward for what Mr. Bárta conducted in 2006,” Kos added.
Another contract awarded to ABL by the Prague 11 administration was for running an anti-corruption hotline worth Kč 1.6 million a year.
Asked by Czech Position whether Prague 11 still has any valid contracts with ABL, district spokeswoman Andrea Volfová said, “I’m pretty sure we don’t, but I can’t say for certain.” She referred this publication to Mayor Mlejnský’s chief of office, Josef Škvor, who could not be reached on Friday.
Upon a motion put forward by the opposition in the Prague 11 assembly in the spring, the administration’s audit and control committee conducted a revision of the contracts with ABL and on July 20 announced that no wrongdoing or irregularities in the contracts with ABL had been identified.
“The audit committee has decided to close the case unless new circumstances arise,” committee head František Hoffman (Communist Party, KSČM) announced. Members of the Prague 11 assembly from Movement For Prague 11 and TOP 09 responded by lodging a criminal complaint against the mayor.
“On October 31, 2008, the firm ABL delivered two invoices for ‘special detective activities’ for Kč 190,400 and Kč 158,937 all at the expense of the Prague 11 district and ordered verbally by Mayor Mlejnský,” the opposition members said in a statement announcing their criminal complaint.
Where’s the billion?
The Movement For Prague 11 says the scale of clientelism and corruption in the Prague 11 administration is far higher than the sums cited in their criminal complaint suggest:
“Recently we made calculations and the result we got was that the town hall [of Prague 11] ‘We will continue to ask: where’s that money? What was it invested into?’made Kč 530 million from the privatization of municipal apartments, and a further Kč 500 million from the Prague Municipal Administration in the form of various grants and subsidies. This money should be used to build a swimming pool, but instead all we get are metal barriers around building sites. Therefore, we will continue to ask: Where’s that money? What was it invested into?” Štyler was cited in Friday’s edition of MfD as saying.
According to MfD’s information, when MP Kristýna Kočí (unaffiliated, formerly of VV) reported to police in ?pril that party founder Bárta had given her a Kč 500,000 bribe, reportedly in return for loyalty, she said he had appointed her to lead VV’s branch in Prague 11 and introduced her to an ABL detective called Erik Š. In her testimony, Kočí reportedly said the detective showed her information about ABL’s activities including reports on activists under surveillance.
Bárta claimed that the money he gave Kočí and others were personal loans; the police investigation into the alleged attempt to bribe by continues, with Bárta having been stripped of his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
