The Czech prosecutor’s office has charged Vratislav Mynář, the former head of the Czech President’s Office, with subsidy fraud and damaging the financial interests of the European Union, Euractiv reports.
After more than three years of investigation, an indictment has been handed down in a case involving Mynář’s company Clever Management. If found guilty, Mynář faces jail time and fines, Czech media outlet Seznam Zprávy reported on Monday.
Mynář, a Czech businessman, former civil servant and politician, ran the office of former Czech President Miloš Zeman from March 2013 to March 2023.
The case concerns the renovation of Mynář’s guest house in Ošvetimany, a small town in the south-east of the country, for which Clever Management received a CZK 5.9 million (€237,000) subsidy from EU funds in 2011, which the court later ruled was an unjustified payment.
However, years later, the company returned the money as it could have helped Mainář in the event of an indictment. The accusation is based on the fact that in the application for a grant for the construction of a guesthouse, Mynář did not truthfully state that the same facility had previously received a grant from another source.
Mynář was a very influential figure in Czech politics and was very close to former President Miloš Zeman.
Zeman tried to help Mynář in this case during his presidential term, as he repeatedly asked Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS/ECR) to sign an order cancelling subsidies related to the Mynář case, but Fiala refused to do so.
The subsidies case is not Mynář’s only problem, as the former head of the presidential office also released dubious information about Zeman’s health during his hospitalisation. He also failed to obtain a security clearance despite the fact that he was working with classified documents.
