Government re-appoints Michal Koudelka head of counterintelligence service

The government has re-appointed Michal Koudelka head of the counter-intelligence Security Information Service (BIS), the Czech News Agency reported on Wednesday, adding that he should assume the post on February 15.

Koudelka’s term as director of the counterintelligence service expired last year and under pressure from his long-term critic President Miloš Zeman, the former government headed by Andrej Babiš named him acting head of the BIS, leaving it to the next government to fill the post on a permanent basis.

In past years President Milos Zeman repeatedly criticized the performance of the intelligence service, berating it for warning about the activities of Chinese and Russian agents in the country.