'High Flyer' takes parliament for a ride

A teenage Czech prankster has proven the old adage "where there's a will, there's a way" - pulling off such an audacious stunt last December that when the story broke this week it seemed almost too unbelievable to be true: police have charged the 19-year-old waiter from a small town on the Czech-German border with fraud, impersonating a government official, and forging official documents. To what aim? Apparently to travel the world - all at public cost.

Lukas Kohout, photo: CTK

It's the stuff of Hollywood movies and boyish day-dreams, the thought of pulling off a hoax allowing one to travel to exotic places around the world: the Maldive Islands, Peru, Sri Lanka, all at public expense. Think you could pull it off? Not very likely, but here in the Czech Republic one man did - 19-year-old Lukas Kohout, a former waiter from a small town. The teenager, who bought a new suit in Prague to use in his charade, has admitted to police that he posed as an assistant to Jan Kavan, the former foreign minister and the President of the UN General Assembly...

By appearing at the right place at the right time, and showing a great steel of nerve, Lukas Kohout was able to access a parliamentary office last December where he used a fax and officially stationary to commission a jet plane to Sri Lanka all in Jan Kavan's name. Then, posing as his assistant, he invited himself and his friends to go in Mr Kavan's stead. Remarkably, the bubble only burst when the plane was en route, after it was discovered the aircraft had not been given permission to fly through Indian airspace. Now, Mr Kohout is back in Prague, facing several serious charges: he could get slapped with paying off costs of several million crowns, and even faces up to eight years in prison. Was it worth it? Probably not. But, suggests Czech psychologist Jaroslav Vydra, reality may not have sunk in just yet:

"It's quite likely that he does it more out of fun than to harm someone, but of course that's always the first step - you do lots of fun, then all of a sudden you "push someone, and they fall down the stairs" and then there's a major problem, so that's probably the same with him. Of course, now they'll slap him over the wrist because he's going to pay a million crowns back and maybe he will even go to jail. So, he will get warned off, so to speak. If it doesn't help him, then he will be perhaps an international businessman who will defraud billions next time. Who knows?"

The irony is that the qualities Mr Kohout has displayed would be considered assets under different circumstances:

"Of course bravado, nerve, quick decision making, the ability to do things that not many other people would do - all the leaders have that. You do not win a campaign over Rommel in the desert by following standard procedures, you have to try new things, to be brave, to excel in something."

Whether young Lukas Kohout will excel in the future at whatever he does, is of course in question just now: before he can get on with his life, he will first have to answer for his deeds.