Prague Castle. Credit: ZM.
Prague, July 21 (CTK) – Vratislav Mynar, who headed the office of previous president Milos Zeman, received 25 million crowns last year from a company without any office and traceable business activities, the Seznam Zpravy news server writes today, referring to Mynar’s property statement.
The server says this is the highest income Mynar reported during his time at the Presidential Office’s helm.
The transaction involved people from the circle of arms dealer Michal Strnad, for whose business in the world Zeman as head of state was lobbying, the server adds.
According to the spokesman for Strnad’s Czechoslovak Group, the billionaire has no information about the transaction and it is not related to his group.
Mynar received the money from the SPV Knoviz limited liability company, based in Prague centre in Opletalova Street. According to Seznam Zpravy, it is a “shell company” as it has no office at that address.
The former owner and managing director of the company, Martin Zeleny, has told the server that the company is “empty today anyway” and that he knows nothing about the transaction because it happened after he left the firm. The company was taken over by Jiri Maras, a businessman who is often associated with the Strnad family’s business activities.
Seznam Zpravy writes that SPV Knoviz now has no traceable business activities, no real estate, no website and has not published financial statements since its establishment. It was originally to be in charge of a development project in the Kladno locality, central Bohemia, but it did not build the planned family houses and sold the project for 24.775 million crowns before the building permit was issued, a similar amount that it then sent to Mynar, the server adds.
Asked whether Strnad was in fact behind SPV Knoviz, Andrej Cirtek, spokesman for Strnad’s Czechoslovak Group (CSG), said the company was not related to CSG.
It is not clear for what Mynar may have received the money from the company, and he did not respond to the respective questions, the server writes.
It reminds of warm relations between former President Zeman and the Strnad family. Companies from the arms dealer’s circle contributed to his presidential campaign. The president decorated Michal Strnad’s father Jaroslav and Zeman also took him to China, where the then president lobbied for the interests of the arms dealer. In the past, Zeman also referred to himself as an “unpaid agent” of the Strnad-owned Tatra vehicle manufacturer.
