President Zeman says counterintelligence wiretapped people close to him

President Miloš Zeman claims the counterintelligence service BIS had wiretapped people close to him. In an interview for the daily Blesk, Mr. Zeman said the head of the service, Michal Koudelka, had personally ordered the wiretappings several years ago. He said they had eventually been stopped at his request by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

The prime minister has denied this, telling the ctk news agency that he does not have the power to issue such an order. In a related development, the news site Neovlivni.cz wrote that the BIS had closely monitored the activities of the president’s economic adviser Martin Nejedlý because of his close contacts with Russia.