The four defendants who entered into the agreements were given conditional and financial penalties in court, possibly even a ban from football. “The consequences of an illegally approved plea agreement must be decided by the court, however, the issue is very serious, especially because it involves a cooperating accused (Grímma), who helped the public prosecutor’s office uncover the alleged criminal activity in the case under discussion,” he told ČTK Bohuslav
According to him, the court made mistakes in two categories that Bohuslav demonstrated on the Grímm agreement, but the same applies to other concluded agreements. According to Berbro’s lawyer, the error was, for example, in the fact that, according to the law, the court was supposed to issue two statements – a statement about the plea agreement and at the same time the statement about guilt and punishment itself. But the court combined both statements. Bohuslav sees another error in the fact that the court intervened in the text of the agreement concluded by the public prosecutor with Grimm, changed part of the wording and subsequently approved an agreement that was not negotiated between the plaintiff and the defendant.
“The court is here only to approve or disapprove the agreement, not to interfere with it. He is the referee, the guarantor, the insurance, but he must not materially interfere with the agreement on guilt and punishment,” said Bohuslav. According to the transcript of the recording from the September main trial, even the prosecutor admitted that minor changes and reformulations of the agreement were accepted.
Bohuslav sees another serious error in the fact that the court did not ask Grímma a series of questions that are directly imposed by the criminal code. The questions are meant to show that the defendant knows what he is doing when he negotiates a deal. These are questions about whether the defendant knows what he is accused of, what the legal qualifications are, what the possible penalty rates are and the consequences of the accepted agreement. The court is also required by law to ask whether the defendant entered into the agreement voluntarily and without coercion. “This is one of the key things that is also required by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and that was missing,” said Bohuslav. According to him, the defense has doubts as to whether Grímm even knew what he was accused of.
According to Berbro’s lawyer, the court’s errors are particularly serious in the case of Grímm, who is a cooperating accused. For example, the court is already summoning him this week as a witness to testify in the case of alleged football corruption. In his testimony in May, while still a defendant, Grímm admitted accepting bribes for influencing several matches.
According to the indictment, Berbr was at the head of an organized group that participated in the manipulation of ten matches of the third and second leagues in 2019 and 2020. According to the file, Berbr used his dominant position in the FAČR and influenced the appointment of referees at Slavoj Vyšehrad matches according to the requirements of the club’s sports director at the time, Roman Rogoz. Selected judges and delegates, as well as one player and an official of competing clubs then helped Vyšehrad to win for a bribe, says the indictment.
2023-11-20 18:09:51
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