News

Officers from the Czech police’s internal affairs agency have charged a policeman with stabbing his Ukrainian-born wife to death. Miloš Babyka, who is 35, was arrested on Wednesday evening, a week after going on the run. The website tn.cz reported that he had been arrested in Plzeň, the city where the attack took place. Police had issued a warning saying that Mr. Babyka, who was said to have been in the division that dealt with foreigners, was armed and dangerous; they said had been monitoring the officer prior to the killing, but refused to say why.

The Czech Republic face a “final” in their World Cup qualifier against Armenia at Prague’s Eden Arena on Friday night, the team’s coach Michal Bílek said on Thursday. He said his team – who are currently third in their group, one point behind Bulgaria – need to win three of their four remaining games if they are to reach Brazil next year. Goalkeeper Petr Čech said that while the Czechs had beaten the Armenians 3:0 in Yerevan, they were a tough opponent who performed better on the road. On Tuesday the Czech Republic will play Italy away.

The Czech government has begun discussing Finance Minister Jan Fischer’s state budget proposal for next year, and the debate will continue until the end of September before a final version is given approval, the country’s interim prime minister, Jiří Rusnok, said on Wednesday. Under the proposal next year’s deficit should be 110 billion crowns – five billion higher than the proposal planned by the previous centre-right government led by Petr Nečas. The finance minister said that individual ministries had requests for increases adding up to 35 billion crowns. He stressed it would not to be possible to fulfil all requests although the government would debate the matter. On September 20, members of the so-called tripartite – union, business and government leaders – will also debate the budget prior to its approval by the cabinet.

A witness in the case against lobbyist Roman Janoušek told the court on Wednesday that he was approached by a third party allegedly offering him a bribe to not testify or take part in a police re-enactment of a hit-and-run that could land the defendant a sentence of up to 18 years in jail. The witness expressed the conviction the person had been sent by the lobbyist. Mr Janoušek is charged with attempted murder and driving under the influence in the incident which took place in March in 2012.