Supreme State Attorney cooperates with US in Gripen corruption probe.

The Supreme State Attorney Renata Vesecká has taken up a US offer to cooperate in an investigation into suspected corruption over the purchase of fighter jets by the Czech government. A spokeswoman for the state attorney said on Thursday that a justice ministry representative was sent to Washington at the end of July to seek out information. The state attorney reopened the case over the deal to purchase 24 Gripen jets from the BAE systems/SAAB consortium in March after investigations were twice shelved by the police. The latest inquiry also involves cooperation with Austria and Switzerland.

The Social Democrat Czech government originally decided in 2002 to purchase 24 jets for 60.2 billion crowns but failed to win support for the contract in Parliament. It was eventually replaced by a contract to lease 14 jets for 20 billion crowns over 10 years. BAE systems was fined nearly 400 million dollars at the start of this year by the US Department of Justice and British Serious Fraud Office for false statements and irregular accounting connected with multi-billion defence contracts.