Final Word from Tuesday, July 13, 2021

One of the last big criminal cases to fall by the wayside before Pavel Zeman left as supreme state prosecutor was the decade-long investigation into an overpriced storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, built by the letter-box company CEEI for more than twice the going rate. It had the name of ex-CEO Martin Roman of ČEZ written all over it, but the police did what they could to make sure they didn't draw the lines the way Petr Honzejk of HN did in Oct. 2011, the same year that Pavel Zeman became the chief defender of the country's legal system. The state prosecutor closed the CEEI case last year, despite "strong suspicions" that Roman pocketed 9% of the Kč 1.76bn price. In the 2020s, when the U.S. Dept. of Justice is able to obtain the private key to a Bitcoin address and snatch back a ransom payment, Czech law enforcement isn't able to determine who walked away with Kč 600m from ČEZ on just this one deal. Perhaps Pavel Zeman will explain why in his memoirs one day. [ Czech Republic temporary United States attorney general Hospodářské noviny Reportéři ČT ]