Communist past returns to haunt embattled Czech PM
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/19/communist-past-returns-to-haunt-embattled-czech-pm-andrej-babis
Over generous refreshments during a 90-minute meeting in a Bratislava wine bar on 11 November 1982, the agent soon to be known as Bureš was asked to report what associates were saying about the late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, whose death the previous day threatened to shake the communist world and the east-west cold war confrontation to the core.
According to archived documents, the recruit, Andrej Babiš – today the Czech Republic’s prime minister and second richest man – was worried someone might see him with officers from the security services, hampering his career with a state trading company that enabled a privileged existence and foreign travel.
Last week a court in Bratislava – capital of the independent Slovakia that emerged, along with the Czech Republic, from Czechoslovakia’s dissolution in 1993 –
delivered a powerful political and legal blow by dismissing his argument that he had been wrongly identified as a former agent.
The verdict appeared to mark the final failure of a years-long campaign by the Slovak-born Babiš to prove he was the victim of a smear campaign by enemies designed to destroy his political career and his business empire, which encompasses about 230 companies in a vast conglomerate called Agrofert.
Radek Schovánek, an expert in communist-era security files for the Czech defence ministry, said Babiš served the StB as an informal “trusty” before becoming a fully fledged agent.
There was little doubt from Babiš’s 12 surviving security files – others have been destroyed – that he joined willingly, Schovánek said.
“It’s a joke to claim he was a victim,” he said. “Falsifying the files was impossible. There were very strict rules regarding the paperwork of secret collaborators. We have analysed all the information that Babiš gave them. It was accurate and according to the rules, everything was in order.”