PRAGUE: A Czech prosecutor has asked lawmakers to strip outgoing prime minister Petr Necas of his immunity from prosecution over a bribery and spy scandal that toppled his government, the parliament speaker said yesterday.
“On July 8... Speaker of Parliament Miroslava Nemcova received a request from High State Prosecutor Ivo Istvan for parliamentary consent to begin criminal proceedings against lawmaker Petr Necas,” Nemcova’s office said in a statement.
Rightwinger Necas, 48, quit office last month after his chief of staff and alleged lover was indicted for abuse of power and bribery alongside seven other senior figures, including military intelligence heads and former lawmakers. All but one are still in police custody.
Prosecutors believe the aide, Jana Nagyova, had military spies tail Necas’s wife of 25 years, whom he is divorcing. Necas yesterday denied having offered lucrative posts in state-run companies to three rebel lawmakers from his own party in exchange for their resignation — a case for which Nagyova and the three ex-lawmakers have been indicted.
“There was no deal on swapping the resignation as lawmaker for top posts,” Necas said in a statement, playing such deals down as political horse-trading rather than corruption.
“Political deals cannot be considered a crime... it’s not clear to me what I should be accused of and why,” said Necas.
In office since July 2010, Necas led a wobbly three-party centre-right coalition that survived eight confidence motions.
Leftwing rival President Milos Zeman has since appointed longtime ally and former finance minister Jiri Rusnok as his successor.
Zeman is due to approve Rusnok’s cabinet tomorrow, but analysts say it is unlikely to win confidence in a parliamentary vote that must take place within 30 days. To survive, it needs backing from a simple majority of the lawmakers present in the 200-seat chamber. AFP
