Czech anti-corruption police have asked for Vlasta Parkanová (TOP 09), the deputy speaker of the lower house of Parliament and a former defense minister, to be stripped of immunity so that she may be prosecuted on abuse of office and other charges for her role in the 2009 purchase of CASA transport aircraft. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) had looked into allegations of corruption regarding the CASA deal, which Brussels later said ran afoul of public procurement rules.

Last November, Minister of Defense Alexandr Vondra said that Spanish aviation manufacturer EADS and the Czech arms trading firm Omnipol must deliver the four CASA planes purchased by the Czech defense ministry in full working order, including functional anti-rocket defense system, by end of May, or the order would be cancelled. On Friday, Vondra announced that EADS and Omnipol had agreed to the deadline.

One of the jewels of Czech military and civil technology, Pardubice-based flight and military surveillance systems company ERA, has been snapped by by arms middleman and exporter Omnipol for an undisclosed sum. ERA was previously owned by US company SRA International, with the Czech company’s equipment sales, reportedly, closely followed in Washington.

Czechs have come to expect inflated prices in public procurement deals, but even the most cynical observers were taken aback by the Defense Ministry’s purchase of four CASA C-295M transport planes. Nondisclosure clauses prevent scrutiny of the real costs, but Czech Position has obtained documents that confirm suspicions of grossly inflated prices on the CASA deal.