Babis Denies Ties to Secret Police (StB): Pledges Further Legal Action

Andrej Babis

Prague, Feb 13 (CTK) – Czech PM Andrej Babis asserted today that he never cooperated with the former Czechoslovak communist secret police (StB), in spite of a Slovak court verdict having dismissed this, he called the affair fabricated and spoke of filing a new lawsuit.

 

The Bratislava Regional Court has dismissed, in new proceedings, a lawsuit of Babis who complained about figuring unrightfully as an StB agent in StB files.

 

Czech President Milos Zeman, for his part, will give Babis, whose minority government is ruling in resignation, another attempt to form a new government, even in spite the Slovak court verdict, Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek told CTK.

 

Babis, the ANO movement leader whose minority government lost a vote of confidence in parliament in January, said he learnt about the court decision from the media.

 

“I will contact my lawyer, I will definitely continue suing this. Of course, I mind this, I never cooperated [with the StB], I never signed anything [with the StB] and it is a fabricated affair…The court decision even makes us uncertain as to whom we should sue now. We will definitely continue the legal action,” Babis said.

 

He said he is ready to spend his life in court disputes. His lawyers will sue the Slovak Interior Ministry or the Slovak counter-intelligence service, or they will possibly turn to the European Court of Human Rights, he said.

 

The news about the Slovak court verdict means no change from the point of view of President Zeman’s planned steps, Ovcacek said.

 

“The president respects the election result and therefore the second government-forming attempt is up to the chairman of the victorious ANO movement,” Ovcacek said, accusing Czech media of deliberately spreading disinformation about the Babis cas.

 

ANO deputy chairman Jaroslav Faltynek said he knows nothing about the Slovak court verdict and is uninterested in it.

 

Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikan (ANO) mentioned the previous verdict of the Slovak Constitutional Court (US) saying that Babis should not have sued the Slovak Nation’s Memory Institute (UPN), which is in charge of maintaining the StB archives.

 

“Logically, a lawsuit will be now lodged against someone else,” Pelikan said.

 

The Bratislava Regional Court dealt with the case again after the US last year cancelled the regional and the supreme courts’ verdicts that were in favour of Babis. In the new proceedings, the Regional Court judges were bound by the US decision.