Final Word from Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Who were the sources for Seznam Zprávy's article yesterday? The article is written in typical tabloid style and is designed to mislead the reader about the sources. We learn alternately that Interior Min. Jan Hamáček "according to several sources described his plan to travel to Moscow," that "according to multiple witnesses, he wanted to go to Moscow with a plan to swap the international scandal related to the [Vrbětice] attack for supplies of Sputnik V and the possibility of a political summit in Prague between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin," and that Seznam "has information directly from the participants of the meeting." When you study the article carefully, you conclude that the two Seznam reporters did not get a smoking gun from anyone at the meeting. More likely, it seems, is that the meeting was secretly recorded by one of the intelligence agencies and then passed illegally to Seznam. Whether the tape, if there is one, was altered in the process is a key question. [ Czech Republic Seznam.cz Janek Kroupa Kristina Ciroková BIS ÚZSI VZ explosiions ]
Glossary of difficult words
to swap - to take part in an exchange of;
smoking gun - a piece of incontrovertible incriminating evidence;
to alter - to change in character or composition, typically in a comparatively small but significant way.