Roman Janoušek
While some regions, such as southern or northern Bohemia, had their own sovereign ruler, the situation in the capital was different. In Prague, the interests of several godfathers crossed. One of them was Roman Janoušek.
The businessman from the Myšák Gallery in Prague’s New Town, who has pulled the strings of Prague politics, gained his power through his close ties with former Mayor Pavel Bém. Wiretaps of telephone conversations between “Mazanek” and “Kolibřík” have become part of the national folklore. In addition to Bém, he could also communicate with former ministers such as Petr Bendl and Aleš Řebíček. According to the wiretaps, he also gave gifts to a number of officials of the Prague City Hall.
In addition to ties to Prague and national politicians and officials, Janoušek’s portfolio of contacts included acquaintance with one of the most powerful prosecutors, Libor Grygárek. Grygárek, for example, bought an apartment for CZK 13.5 million directly from Myšák, and neither he nor his mother-in-law, who was involved in the purchase of the property, had enough money. The connection to this prosecutor with the worst reputation explains why none of Janoušek’s cronies have ever been convicted of anything.
In addition to brokering interesting business deals, he probably came into his own in connection with the activities of MEDEA KULTUR or ORA PRINT. With Janoušek’s apparent complicity, these companies were able to latch onto several state-owned companies, such as the General Health Insurance Company or the Forests of the Czech Republic. Bank accounts linked to Janoušek were blocked by the Swiss authorities on the grounds that they might be proceeds of crime. The owner has thus lost several hundred million crowns.
Janoušek’s reputation was broken only by a case in which he hit a foreign woman in his luxury car with a considerable amount of alcohol in his blood, who tried to reproach him for the previous incident. He drove away from the accident and only became interested in the health of the badly injured woman when he started to leak in his shoes and realized that no prosecutor, even if he had ten apartments in Janoušek’s buildings, could help him. At that time, he was facing a murder conviction and perhaps a twelve-year stay somewhere in Valdice. That didn’t happen, but he ended up serving four and a half years for grievous bodily harm. Unfortunately, he only managed to serve about a quarter of his sentence when the court granted him a stay in prison. The reason was his alleged fatal health problems. However, another court did not buy the stories about him being able to sit in his ear and drink herbal tea, and had him monitored to see how Janoušek was really moaning. The results surprised everyone: the outcast was living a happy social life and even engaged in strenuous sporting activities. So the result was that the fallen godfather found himself behind bars again.
Tomas Hrdlicka
Another Prague godfather, whose real power far exceeded the elected office entrusted to his hands, was Tomáš Hrdlička. Formally, he sat for several terms on the Prague 10 city council and for a time served as a councillor in that district, but in fact he controlled the Prague ODS and the city council for many years during the reign of Pavel Bém. He was associated with a number of companies which he controlled through other companies and associates. For example, through Natland he tried to control one of the most lucrative businesses, i.e. the collection of municipal waste in Prague.
At the time of the ODS collapse in 2013, however, he had already been expelled from the party. He did not despair and tried to influence public events through a number of other political entities. He is often associated with people around former President Miloš Zeman, the SPD and others. It has often been said that when the ODS power was declining and an alternative political path was demanded, he was one of the architects of the Váci veřejné project, according to some sources. He founded this marketing project, which we write about below, with another godfather, Roman Janoušek. Although the links with the Prague godfathers have been steadfastly denied by the representatives of Věci veřejných, they can be inferred from many personal and business connections.
Police also accused Hrdlička of accepting a bribe in connection with the extension of a lease agreement for municipal land, but in this case no guilt was proven.
