Final Word from Tuesday, August 6, 2002
The recent revelation that ex-Secretary General Karel Srba of the foreign ministry wanted to have a journalist killed to cover up his dirty deals has led to wild speculation. Not everyone thinks it's an open-and-shut case. Here are some of the juicier theories: The journalist herself was an intelligence agent, and the whole thing was a setup; it was a setup meant to discredit Vladimír Špidla or Jan Kavan; the Castle got involved in the setup because it wanted to help the Coalition gain more weight in Špidla's cabinet; the real goal was to cover up something even more serious than Srba's deals. Jaroslav Spurný hinted in Respekt that those around the "corrupt" contracts for the D47 highway and the supersonic fighters might have wanted to put a scare into journalists. When we pressed him on this, he said he didn't really think it was the Brits. BAE/Saab Housing and Construction