Czech lawmakers strip PM of immunity

PRAGUE: The Czech parliament on Friday stripped billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis of immunity as a lawmaker, allowing the police to investigate his alleged role in EU subsidy fraud from 2007.

“The decision was adopted,” said deputy parliament speaker Tomio Okamura in a 111-69 vote. Police have charged Babis with fraud, alleging the 63-year-old Slovak-born chemicals, food and media tycoon pulled his Stork Nest farm out of his sprawling Agrofert holding to make it eligible for an EU small-company subsidy before eventually putting it back in the holding.

Babis told parliament on Friday that the request was politically motivated and labelled the Stork Nest case “a purpose-built pseudo-cause”, insisting the police had “no direct or indirect evidence that I committed a crime.” Babis is struggling to form a government after his minority cabinet comprising ANO members and unaffiliated experts lost a parliamentary confidence vote on Tuesday and subsequently resigned, which will take effect on January 24. But Czech President Milos Zeman has said he will give Babis a second chance to form a new cabinet. If needed, a third and final try to form a government falls to the parliament speaker, who is currently a member of Babis’s ANO movement. Campaigning on an anti-corruption, anti-euro ticket, Babis’s ANO (YES) scored a landslide win in October’s general election, but Babis could not put together a majority cabinet after partners turned their backs over the fraud charges.