Final Word from Thursday, February 22, 2007
Unless someone makes a stupid mistake, or someone blows the whistle, corruption is almost always impossible to prove. What's so unusual about the Gripen fighter scandal is that someone with intimate knowledge of the alleged bribery plan, including the amounts, the dual overt/covert agreements and the names and locations of the offshore companies, gave long interviews to Swedish public TV. The last really big suspected corruption affair in the CR, the e-toll contract won by Kapsch, ran up against a wall because there were no such details. This time, it won't be so easy for the Czech police to ignore the matter, esp. given the level of participation by their British and Swedish colleagues. But who is going to handle the Czech investigation? When Swedish TV was digging for dirt in Prague, a police source warned it about going to the anti-corruption squad, because it's corrupt.[Czech Republic Television electronic tolls STV BAE Systems Saab Omnipol Richard Háva Otto Jelinek]