http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=12525
ISN SECURITY WATCH (17/08/05) – Former members of the Czechoslovak secret police currently hold senior positions in the Czech secret service, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes reported on Wednesday.
The news, which surprised politicians tasked with monitoring the secret services, was part of a joint investigation with TV NOVA, a private station that aired a program on the topic Tuesday evening.
The two media outlets stumbled upon the information while investigating the case of an officer in the Security Information Service (BIS) - the Czech intelligence agency - who was recently fired upon suspicion that he had misused BIS money and had extorted a number of businessmen. In trying to determining the identities of the officer’s superiors, journalists discovered individuals with well-documented histories in the StB, the dreaded Communist-era secret police.
Bohumil Ridosko had admitted in BIS documents that he had taken a two-month KGB course in Moscow. Among other things, he also said he had developed secret operations against around 30 employees of the British and Italian embassies in Prague.
A second officer, Vladimir Palecek, said his operations included cooperating with the KGB in a secret mission against the Belgian and Portuguese embassies.
Both helped lead a section targeting “external enemies” - including Britain, France, and the rest of the Atlantic Alliance - rooting out spies and recruiting agents in these countries. The officers now work in a department responsible for uncovering agents from the former Soviet Union.
In an interview with Mlada fronta, Jan Ruml, a long-time interior minister in the 1990s, said exceptions were usually made for those who worked in technical departments.
“Exceptions certainly should not have been made for agents who worked for the Soviet Union, who were trained by the KGB. It must have been a mistake,” he said. “I’m horrified. It only shows that we were unsuccessful in completely cleansing out the secret services.”
It has long been rumored that dozens of StB officials managed to migrate over to the newly created Czech secret services. Soon after the 1989 revolution, a civil commission examined the records of past StB officials and prevented many from continuing to work in the agency. According to Mlada fronta, the great majority of those fired, however, were agents responsible for combating internal enemies, namely dissidents. Nearly all of those working against NATO member states, for example, were allowed to keep their jobs.
In 1991, a lustration law that banned former members of the StB and undercover collaborators became valid, but a loophole allowed exceptions for selected intelligence officers. The Constitutional Court struck down the loophole one year later, but it was too late to reverse the exceptions already made.
The newspaper estimated the number of StB veterans still at the BIS at around 50.
What has made the current scandal different is that few, if anyone, outside the BIS apparently knew that some former StB agents had risen to prominent positions within the BIS, and that these included people trained by the KGB.
“It’s generally known that some former StB officers went over to the BIS,” Ivan Langer, a member of the parliamentary committee that monitors the activities of the agency, told Mlada fronta. “But we were informed that they don’t work in key positions and that they are gradually leaving the services.”
Langer also expressed worries that people trained in the Soviet Union might be more likely to become double agents, working for their old colleagues. Mlada fronta also cast suspicion over these agents’ records in the post-revolutionary era by claiming that the BIS had not managed to uncover a single agent from the former Soviet Union. The paper, however, did not address the issue of possible, non-public, expulsions or related operations.
The BIS has claimed it cannot legally force out former StB officers since they were cleared by the civilian committee after the revolution and then took advantage of the chaotic legal situation in the early 1990s.
Jan Subert, the spokesman for the BIS, refused to explain how these individuals had now assumed leadership positions. The officers themselves refused to talk to either Mlada fronta or TV Nova.
(By Jeremy Druker in Prague)