CZECH REPUBLIC:LIBERTAS'S CAMPAIGN in the Czech Republic has suffered a setback following the conviction of one of its candidates for tax evasion.
The Prague High Court has confirmed a two-year suspended sentence with four years probation for sitting MEP Vladimir Zelezny, who is second on Libertas’s list of candidates. The conviction relates to the non-payment of VAT to the Czech authorities by Zelezny on the import of paintings by Emil Filla, Andrej Nemes and Alfred Justitz The Prague court confirmed the ruling of a lower court in the case on Monday, although it cancelled a five-million-crown fine handed down in an earlier ruling.
In a statement to The Irish Timeslast night, Libertas said that Zelezny would today tender his resignation as a Libertas candidate for the European Parliament elections to the council of the Libertas party in the Czech Republic.
Zelezny is a controversial figure in Czech politics and was founder of the country’s first commercial TV station in the early 1990s. He has been embroiled in multiple legal actions for 11 years in cases involving tax evasion and the sale of the TV station. He could not be contacted yesterday for comment.
Libertas has also formed an alliance with the German AUF Partei (the Party for Work, Environment and Family). The tie-up follows Libertas’s failure to meet the deadline for registering its own candidates in Germany. Under the alliance any AUF candidates elected have agreed to join a Libertas political group in the parliament.
Libertas has criticised claims from a European election candidate that donations made by visitors to its Irish website end up with the UK branch of the party.
Susan O'Keeffe, Labour's North West candidate, said that when she visited the website, www.libertas.eu/ireland to investigate how the party was funded, she pressed the donation button and it produced a text box stating: "Donate to Libertas in the UK." In a debate on RTÉ Radio yesterday, she asked Libertas founder Declan Ganley: "Why is it going to the UK website when you say you are raising loads of money in Ireland?"
Mr Ganley said Libertas had massive grass roots support from people in Ireland and that every penny that was raised for Libertas in Ireland had been raised by Irish citizens.
When the Libertas Ireland website was visited by The Irish Timesyesterday, the donate button did, as Ms O'Keeffe said, say "Donate to Libertas in the UK". However, when clicked it asked for your country and when Ireland was selected it redirected you to an Irish payment service.
Ms O’Keeffe said she revisited the website last evening and that hitting the donate link directed her to a different page to the one she had based her comments on. A Libertas spokesman suggested Ms O’Keeffe might be “IT illiterate”.