Was Prague’s former mayor wiretapped?

“Janoušek called the mayor, BIS listened and ABL then read the transcript” - that’s how Mladá Fronta DNES sums up the revelations that in 2007 the Security Information Service (BIS) listened in on telephone conversations between the then mayor of Prague, Pavel Bém, and Roman Janoušek, a lobbyist known as the “godfather of Prague business”.

The recordings were mysteriously leaked in 2009 to the private security agency ABL, which belonged at the time to Vít Bárta, leader of the Věci Veřejné [Public Affairs, VV] party. After a campaign that focused on the fight against corruption, Bárta won a breakthrough that led him to join the government in 2010. However, he was forced to resign from his post as minister in April 2011 after his party was caught up in another wiretapping and corruption scandal. During his trial, which opened on March 5, it turned out that his campaign had been financed by – none other than Janoušek.

According to Prague daily, which leads on the front page with the headline “The secret calls of Pavel B.”, the conversations bear witness to the “primitive conditions” prevailing at Prague City Hall and show that Janoušek, who is also wanted in Switzerland for money-laundering, maintained “close relations” with City Hall officials. With the latter he “jointly decided on the most important topics: local urban development plan, land sales, commercial activities of City Hall businesses and the human resources policy.”