Czech ex-minister Bartak pushed through CASA deal - army expert
03.07.2012 14:09
CeskeNoviny: Prague - Military equipment expert Karel Danhel, a key witness in the case of the allegedly overpriced purchase of CASA transport aircraft by the Czech military, said former defence minister Martin Bartak exerted pressure in order to push the deal through, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.
"If a standard tender had been organised, the CASAs would not have been bought. I am absolutely certain about it," Danhel told the paper.
He said there were three or four better offers than the CASA, produced by the Spanish EADS consortium.
Bartak signed the 3.5 billion crown contract for the purchase of the CASAs in 2009, one day before he replaced Vlasta Parkanova as defence minister. Bartak was first deputy defence minister from 2006 to 2009.
The police now want to prosecute Parkanova over the controversial purchase and they asked parliament to strip her of her MP´s immunity.
Danhel said Bartak repeatedly pressed on chief-of-staff Vlastimil Picek who assumed the office in 2007.
When the military experts concluded that the CASAs did not meet the required capacity and flight range and that they had defects, Bartak said this should not be taken into account.
Bartak dismissed Danhel´s view.
"I resolutely dismiss that I would have exerted any pressure over the purchase of the CASA planes," he told CTK.
But MfD writes that Bartak showed dissatisfaction with the military´s position on the CASAs. He wrote in an official document that the military should "avoid biased statements such as liable to failure or substantial and inadequate costs," the paper says.
MfD says Bartak recommended that the military´s critical position on the CASAs not be submitted to then minister Parkanova.
Bartak said Danhel is not a trustworthy witness. He said Danhel was stripped of his security vetting due to serious mistakes.
Danhel told MfD he believes he was suspended and lost his security vetting because he gave his testimony within the investigation of the CASA case.
He said he was told in March that he was stripped of his vetting because secret services considered him a possible enemy of the state who might harm Czech interests in the area of economy and defence.
General Staff spokeswoman Mira Trebicka confirmed that Danhel had some problem with his security vetting. She said Danhel appealed the verdict stripping him of the vetting and the General Staff is waiting for the National Security Office (NBU) to decide on his appeal.
She added that Danhel was a reliable expert.
NBU head Dusan Navratil did not comment on Danhel´s case.
Danhel said the CASAs were one of the cheapest aircraft offered, but the additional technical equipment made them more expensive than other offers. He added that the ministry pressed on the General Staff to delete this conclusion from its report on the CASAs.
Media have been long speculating that the Czech military neither wanted nor needed the CASAs and that the General Staff nodded to the purchase only under pressure from former deputy defence ministers.
The police want current lower house deputy chairwoman Parkanova to be released for prosecution. They say she failed to have an expert opinion on the CASA´s price worked out, causing damage of 658 million crowns to the state.
Bartak was accused of corruption within a case of Tatra trucks. Some observers say it is him and other senior officials, not Parkanova who manipulated military orders.
The Defence Ministry was criticised over a non-transparent system of military acquisitions for a long time, including purchases without standard tenders. Current Defence Minister Alexandr Vondra has changed the system of acquisitions mediated by Czech arms traders, ordered audits of the past contracts and sacked a number of officials.