Court annuls earlier acquittal in Unipetrol bribery case

A verdict fro earlier this year acquitting former government official Zdeněk Doležal of attempted fraud in connection with the sale of the Unipetrol petrochemical company, has been annulled by the Prague high court. An official made the announcement on Friday. The decision means the municipal court will have to again deal with the case. Mr Doležal was suspected of asking for a 5-million-crown bribe from a Polish lobbyist in 2005 in connection with Unipetrol’s privatisation. Several of their meetings were recorded by a hidden TV camera. The earlier acquittal was based on the grounds that money was never actually mentioned in the recordings and that the TV material was poor quality and had been edited. Mr Doležal was thought to have used coded language to ask for the bribe, asking for “five on the table” – a possible veiled reference to 5 million crowns.