Babiš condemns judge in communist-era case after Čapí hnízdo verdict
The appeals court upheld a suspended sentence for MEP Jana Nagyová in the Čapí hnízdo subsidy fraud case. Prime Minister Babiš harshly criticised the ruling and compared the judge to the communist era.
Babiš on Čapí hnízdo verdict: judge behaved as during communism
Prague's appeals court on Monday upheld a three-year suspended sentence for MEP Jana Nagyová (ANO) for subsidy fraud and damaging the financial interests of the European Union in the Čapí hnízdo case. The court dismissed her appeal and also imposed a fine of half a million crowns on her. A motion may be filed with the Supreme Court against the ruling.
According to Aktuálně.cz, Prime Minister and ANO chairman Andrej Babiš sharply criticised the verdict on Sunday in the programme Partie hosted by Tereza Tománková on CNN Prima News. "We have an independent judiciary, but here we have a judge who behaved as during communism," Babiš said. He termed the ruling absurd and said that Nagyová would continue to defend herself and leave the next steps to her lawyers.
Babiš also hinted at what would await him if the Chamber of Deputies were to surrender him for prosecution. "If I were surrendered, I would be given a suspended sentence based on fabricated things without evidence," he said. The Chamber of Deputies did not surrender him for prosecution in early March of this year, and criminal proceedings in his case have been suspended for as long as he holds parliamentary immunity. Babiš has long characterised the trial as political.
The prosecution in the Čapí hnízdo case alleges that Babiš at the turn of 2007 and 2008 arranged for the Farma Čapí hnízdo company to be divested from his Agrofert holding and the shares to be sold to his children and his partner at the time. According to the state prosecutor, he did so in order for the company to ostensibly meet the conditions for obtaining a fifty-million-crown subsidy intended for small and medium-sized enterprises. Nagyová, Babiš's former adviser, allegedly filed the subsidy application and concealed information about the company's links to Agrofert in it.
Source: Aktuálně.cz