The Czech Republic’s former Prime Minister, Petr Necas, has been handed a one-year suspended sentence and fined CZK 100,000 ($5,400) for giving false testimony in the case of abuse of military intelligence (VZ). Necas, who pleaded not guilty, claimed that his testimony was truthful, and that he had asked his then-wife and head of his office, Jana Nagyova, to mediate his assistance from the VZ as he felt concerned for his safety. However, the court ruled that Nagyova had tasked the VZ officers to shadow the then-wife of the PM and use the information discovered for her own benefit.

The scandal of VZ abuse was one of the reasons for the fall of Necas’s cabinet in 2013. Nagyova was sentenced to a three-year suspended sentence with five years of probation for abuse of VZ, and was banned from high state administration posts for ten years. President Milos Zeman recently pardoned Necasova, forgiving the rest of her probation period.

Necas called the whole VZ case political and aimed to bring down his cabinet. He stated that as a high constitutional official, he and his family faced various types of threats, and that he turned to Military Intelligence for security reasons. Despite the court ruling, Necas maintained his innocence and called the case politically motivated.

Article by Prague Forum