Former Czech Prime Minister is accused of committing fraud with European aid

The Czech Public Prosecutor's Office announced on Monday the indictment of former Prime Minister Andrej Babis in a case of fraud involving European subsidies related to his agricultural property.

The Czech police say that in 2007 Babis, who ranks fifth among the richest Czechs and is expected to run for presidential elections next year, took his Stork Nest farm out of his holding company Agrofert (food, chemical and media industry) to obtain a European grant of two million euros reserved for SMEs.

The 67-year-old millionaire, who presides over the central-populist movement ANO, denied all illegal acts, attributing the accusations to political motivations.

The name Babis already appeared, in October 2021, in the Pandora Papers, an international journalistic investigation that revealed the concealment of assets in tax havens by numerous world leaders and prominent entrepreneurs.

According to this investigation, the former Czech minister placed $22 million in shell companies that were used to finance the purchase of Château Bigaud, a large property located in Mougins, in the south of France.

In that case, Babis also denied any involvement and aimed at external political interests to incriminate him, a few days after the legislative elections in his country, which he eventually lost.

He is currently a deputy, but parliament removed his parliamentary immunity in early March to allow his prosecution.

“The prosecution (...) has charged two people in the case described by the media as the 'Stork's Nest case',” said Ales Cimbala, spokesman for the Prague prosecutor's office, in a press release.

One of the suspects would have “committed the crime of subsidy fraud and damage to the European Union's financial interests”, while the other is complicit.

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