An offer he shouldn't have refused

The professional killing on Wed. of František Mrázek at the height of discussions about the fate of his vegetable-oil empire, Český olej/Setuza, has raised suspicions that the timing of this death was no coincidence. Mrázek's partner, Tomáš Pitr, told HN that Mrázek might have been in someone's way with regard to Setuza. One theory raised by Czech Radio is that that someone was Pitr himself. If there was a conspiracy, the question is how far back it went. Was last year's Doležel/Unipetrol bribery affair staged in part as a way to force Pitr and Mrázek to sell Setuza, or was the new vulnerability of Setuza merely a convenient side effect of it? Without that affair, it might not have been palatable for the Paroubek government to take over Setuza and resell it. Pitr is now on board, so the separate fraud charges against him can be dismissed. Mrázek, though, paid with the dearest thing a person has. [Czech Republic Zdeněk Doležel Hospodářské noviny contract killing murder]