With a former top aide to two prime ministers behind bars on suspicion of trying to pocket European Union money — and facing an investigation into attempted murder allegations — the country's political reputation has seemingly reached a new low.

Police arrested Zdeněk Doležel Oct. 10 after raids on seven homes. Two other men were also arrested: Ladislav Péťa, mayor of Budišov, south Moravia, and Miloslav Řehulka, a former subordinate of Doležel and a clerk at the Agriculture Ministry.

Péťa is charged with bribery and blackmail, and Řehulka is charged with blackmail.

The media are widely reporting that all three concocted a scheme to defraud the EU of millions of crowns by overstating the price for work to be done on two castles in south Moravia that were eligible for restoration funding.

Reconstruction work on a castle in Budišov was inflated by 30 million Kč ($1.3 million), and repair costs at a castle in nearby Třebíč were exaggerated by 42 million Kč, press reports say.

Marek Řičář, an architect overseeing the restoration of Budišov castle, went to police with the plan — but not before the men first offered to bribe him with 300,000 Kč, according to some press reports, and then later blackmailed him.

TV Nova is reporting that the men had taken out a contract on Rícar's life, an allegation that authorities are still investigating.

Regional Development Minister Petr Gandalovič notified the European Commission about the plan Oct. 16.

The Anti-Organized Crime Bureau (ÚOOZ) is heading the investigation. The Interior Ministry has declined to comment beyond confirming the arrests.

The three men face eight years in jail each if found guilty. None says he is.

Doležel's arrest caps the startling downfall of a man long suspected of corruption but who nevertheless held top posts in the government, running the offices of the country's last two prime ministers: Stanislav Gross and Jiří Paroubek, both members of the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD).

It's another black eye for the scandal-plagued ČSSD, four months after a report surfaced alleging ties between the party and organized crime — a report ČSSD leaders say cost the party the general election in June. This new scandal, emerging just as the country readies for local and Senate elections Oct. 20–21, can hardly help the party.

"There will be an impact," political analyst Zdeněk Zbořil says. "It's connected to the ČSSD somehow. It doesn't matter what government this started under, the important thing is that these people were there through the ČSSD's rule."

A questionable past

Doležel joined the ČSSD in 1994, the same year he became a member of the city council in Velké Meziříčí.

He was fired from running the city's local cultural house in 2000, when an inspection revealed he was diverting money from the center into a personal account he used to buy a car.

He lost a re-election bid in Velké Meziříčí in 2002, and a bid for the European Parliament in 2004.

Still, he rose through the ranks of the ČSSD, until Paroubek fired him in August 2005, after secret TV Nova footage recorded him asking for "five on the table," a phrase prosecutors said was a bribe request for 5 million Kč made to a Polish lobbyist in connection with the government's sale of state-owned Unipetrol. The contract eventually went to the Polish company PK Orlen.

The ČSSD booted Doležel out soon after.

In recent days, Paroubek has tried to distance the ČSSD from the current scandal, saying Doležel is "psychotic" and "not normal."

Police official targeted

On the same day Doležel was sticking his tongue out at cameras on his way into custody, authorities were looking deeper into the activities of a Budišov company called Bono Publico, which Péťa and Řičář founded in 2004.

The company was the one seeking financing to reconstruct the castles.

Police followed the arrests of Doležel, Péťa and Řehulka by arresting Věra Jourová, a former deputy in the Regional Development Ministry, on charges of corruption in the case.

Police are not commenting on what is perhaps the most serious allegation in the scandal: TV Nova's claim that Doležel planned to use the assassination of Řičář as a dry run for a mob hit on Jan Kubice, the director of the ÚOOZ.

Kubice has been under police protection since Oct. 13.

Kubice first raised the specter of the ČSSD's possible organized crime ties a few weeks before June's general election, delivering a special report to a closed session of Parliament that was leaked to the media.

Since then, the ČSSD has been investigating who leaked the report. Last month, it surfaced that the party had likely sought permission to wiretap dozens of phone lines connected with several people, including Kubice.

Adriana Krnáčová, director of the Czech branch of the watchdog group Transparency International, cites the latest scandal as more evidence that there needs to be greater openness inside the government.

"I think this shows more about how politicians are choosing their people," she says. "In the Czech Republic, we do not focus on morality. The only qualification for you to get into high government is your friendship with politicians."