Czech Interior Ministry launches audit at Prague Castle over shredded intelligence report

The Czech Ministry of Interior will launch a 10-day audit to examine the management of documents and files at the Office of the President on Monday.

The authorities are to check whether the office complied with requirements for the protection of classified information. The audit was recommended following information that the President’s office had shredded an intelligence report on the involvement of Russian secret agents in the 2014 explosions in a munitions depot in Vrbětice, Moravia.

The explosions killed two people and caused close to a billion crowns in damages, disrupting life in nearby villages. Czech intelligence traced the blasts to two agents from the Russian military intelligence service GRU who were in the close vicinity at the time. The Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian embassy staffers shortly after this fact was revealed.