State Attorney drops Cunek’s case for the second time

State Attorney, Alif Salichov, has dropped his investigation into Jiri Cunek, the former deputy prime minister. This is the second time in four months that Mr Salichov has called a halt to the investigation. Mr Cunek stood accused of accepting a half-a-million crown bribe when he was mayor of Vsetin in 2002. Charges against him were thrown out by Mr Salichov in August, who said that ‘procedural shortcomings’ had undermined the case. But in November, Supreme State Attorney Renata Vesecka asked Mr Salichov to reopen the investigation, at which point deputy prime minister Jiri Cunek resigned from the government. On Tuesday, Mr Salichov said that he could find no evidence that Mr Cunek had acted in a way that would advantage the man supposed to have bribed him, and thus he could see no reason why Mr Cunek should have received a bribe. In a statement to the press, Mr Cunek said that the State Attorney’s move proved his innocence, which he had been maintaining all along.

On the same day, another State Attorney’s Office dropped a sexual-harassment case being brought against Mr Cunek by his former secretary, Marcela Urbanova. According to a spokesperson, no crime could be proved.