Lower house committee recommends appointing Michal Koudelka head of BIS

The Security Committee of the lower house of Parliament has recommended that the government officially appoint Michal Koudelka head of the counter-intelligence Security Information Service (BIS).

Michal 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. The parties in the new coalition government have indicated they want Koudelka to remain in the post.

In past years President Milos Zeman repeatedly attacked the BIS's work, berating it for warning about the activities of Chinese and Russian agents in the country.