- Title: CZECH-RATH/VERDICT Senior Czech politician gets jail term for accepting bribes
- Date: 23rd July 2015
- Summary: PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC (JULY 23, 2015) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** TV VANS IN FRONT OF THE REGIONAL COURT BUILDING PEOPLE ENTERING COURT BUILDING COURT SIGN JOURNALISTS WAITING IN COURT CORRIDOR NOTICE ANNOUNCING RATH CASE CAMERAMEN IN COURT ROOM SENTENCING IN PROGRESS POLICEMAN WATCHING (SOUNDBITE) (Czech) JUDGE, ROBERT PACOVSKY, SAYING: "The accu
- Embargoed: 7th August 2015 13:00
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- Location: Czech Republic
- Country: Czech Republic
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAB0CNGP2WSI6HYBYMC05WHZ92Y
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A Prague court sentenced senior Czech leftist politician to eight and a half years to jail on Thursday (July 23) for taking over half a million euros in bribes for projects involving European Union subsidies.
David Rath, former health minister, regional governor and a rising star in the ruling Social Democrat Party, is the most prominent senior official convicted so far as police and judges try to clean up widespread corruption that has tarnished the image of mainstream Czech political parties.
Rath was arrested in 2012 as he walked out of the house of his associates, clutching 7 million crowns ($285,272) stuffed in a wine box.
The court ruled that the money, as well as other payments in a total of eight cases, were bribes he solicited as the governor of the Central Bohemia region for handing out overpriced public contracts for repairing a publicly owned castle and delivering equipment to hospitals.
Some of them involved subsidies from the European Union, which however were not paid out once the criminal investigation was launched. The prosecution said Rath and his associated tried to get over 11 million in EU funding for the rigged projects.
"The accused Dr David Rath is according to paragraph 331, subsection 4 of the criminal law, sentenced for eight years and six months in jail with supervision," judge Robert Pacovsky read out in court.
Rath was also sentenced to confiscation of nearly 22 million crowns found on him, during a house search and at a bank account.
Rath was not present at the court ruling but he and his lawyer said they would appeal to a higher court.
"I am in the fact glad that the death sentence was cancelled, because I would be aspirant to it," Rath said to journalists in the front of his doctor's office in Hostivice village near Prague, wearing a white doctor's coat and stethoscope, saying he had been dealing with his patients and that was why he didn't attend the final court session.
"I will of course use all the legal possibilities Czech law gives me and I will continue step by step with my arguments that the verdict is against accomplished evidence."
Ten other people have been sentenced alongside Rath, most of them to jail terms, some to suspended sentences. The judgement by Prague Regional Court is the harshest punishment for corruption handed to a high-ranking politician in the post-communist era.
Rath, medical doctor, was a rising star in the Social Democrat party when he was health minster in 2005-2006. After the party surprisingly dropped out of government in 2006, Rath came back as regional governor after a successful election in 2008 and held that post until his arrest.
Corruption, mostly involving public tenders, has been a major factor in the sharp drop of trust in parties that had defined the past two decades of post-communist transformation. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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