Bárta in alleged spying scandal

Fresh allegations of wiretapping among top members of the Public Affairs (VV) party are shedding light on the unsavory political practices the junior coalition member uses against its own members.

MP Vít Bárta, VV's chief financier and head of the party's faction in Parliament, is now tied to a new investigation under which police allegedly discovered a listening device inside Transport Minister Pavel Dobeš's (VV) automobile.

The ministry discovered the device last fall but failed to report it because Dobeš did not want to damage his party's reputation, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) reported Jan. 30. At the time of the discovery, Dobeš's personal driver was a man named Tomáš Jánský, who worked at ABL, a private security firm formerly owned by Bárta and now controlled by his brother.

Though Dobeš initially told MfD he did not rule out his car may have been bugged, he later reversed this claim.

"I deny the theory that there is, or ever was, a bug," he said in an interview with TV Nova.

The ambiguous news came as little surprise to other members of VV, who have been subjected to various cases of spying and blackmail attempts since the party took its place as a junior member of the governing tripartite coalition in fall 2010.

One such case has Bárta facing a criminal trial for trying to bribe lower-house deputy and former VV member Kristýna Kočí, as well as Jaroslav Škárka, a former MP who is also being prosecuted for accepting the bribe.

Kočí and Škárka came forward last summer, saying Bárta offered them 500 million and 170 million Kč, respectively, in exchange for party loyalty.

"The party runs on bribery, including bribery by promotion, as well as blackmail using information Bárta gets from ABL," Kočí said. "If you decide to do something contrary to his opinion, he will come to you and say, 'You probably wouldn't like it if your parents read this or this about you in the newspaper,' or, 'Your wife wouldn't be happy if she found out about your affair with a coworker.' "

The decision to file criminal charges against Bárta was made Jan. 26 by Prague 5 State Attorney Hana Vrbová, who acted on an earlier police recommendation to prosecute Bárta after concluding an investigation in which Kočí, the whistle-blower, was subjected to a 96-question lie-detector test.

Prosecutors sided with Kočí, though she failed the lie-detector examination, expressing anxiety when police questioned her about the reasons Bárta offered her the money.

"The results of the investigation provided adequate reason to try the defendants in the court of law," Prague Municipal State Attorney Hana Hercegová announced Jan. 26.

Both Bárta and Škárka continue to maintain their innocence. During the ensuing scandal, Bárta came forward and requested the lower house strip him of his parliamentary immunity so he may defend himself in court against the allegations.

"From the moment [the lower house] gave me up, I've been saying I can only be cleared in the court of law," Bárta has said. "I'm looking forward to the trial."

If convicted, Bárta faces up to six years in prison.

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at
mhulpachova@praguepost.com