Prague, Nov 4 (CTK) – The Czech military’s contract for Tatra lorries signed in 2006 and worth 2.6 billion crowns was accompanied by corruption, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday, referring to information from the military intelligence.
The intelligence tapped the phone of businessman Pavel Stosek who was to secure the lorry deal for Tatra company without a tender, the paper says.
The government of Vladimir Spidla (Social Democrats, CSSD) approved to place the huge contract to Tatra without a tender in 2004. It was Miroslav Kostelka, defence minister in 2003-2004, who proposed it, MfD recalls.
Kostelka said he hoped that the Tatra deal would be absolutely corruption-free. He trusted Stosek who was his former classmate.
“When I heard that Stosek got a kickback, I was disappointed,” the paper quotes Kostelka as saying.
The state signed the contract though the wiretapped phone calls indicated that lobbyists would receive a high commission for the military order, the paper says.
Stosek and Tatra managers allegedly received a bribe of tens of millions of crowns.
Former defence minister Jiri Sedivy who signed the contract for 556 Tatra T-810 vehicles now says he believes that his then subordinates lied to him.
The contract was signed even though Tatra increased the price for one lorry from the original 1.5 million crowns to the final 3.2 million crowns, the iDnes news server writes.
Sedivy told MfD that his deputy Jaroslav Kopriva assured him that the price of the lorries was good and that the deal was checked.
Kopriva had to leave the Defence Ministry earlier this year over his suspected corruption related to other military purchases.
“Our task was to look for anything deceitful within the purchase of Tatra vehicles,” said Miroslav Krejcik who was military intelligence director then.
“We definitely revealed something deceitful. I reported this to the police,” Krejcik told the paper.
He said the armament section of the Defence Ministry was unwilling to provide information. Soon afterwards Krejcik was dismissed as the intelligence’s head, MfD writes.
The secret wiretapping and investigation of the case stopped on March 17, 2007. This was the date on which Krejcik left the post of military intelligence director, the paper says.