Kurdish doctor demands high compensation...
news
18.1.2008 - Something rotten in the Czech state...
8.1.2008 - The Czech state is not a rule of law state
31.12.2007 - Justice and journalism await Uzunoglu’s backlash
13.12.2007 - Kurdish doctor sues Czech media...
13.9.2007 - Kurdish physician Uzunoglu gets apology form Czech court
1.8.2007 - "Modern-day Dreyfus" finnaly freed after decade-long ordeal
1.8.2007 - Czech court acquits Kurdish physician Uzunoglu
21.5.2007 - Prague’s judiciary appears in a bad light
17.5.2007 - Czech court convicts Kurd of German nationality of crimes not committed
11.4.2007 - The Prague Post: Doctor appeals torture verdict
1.4.2007 - The biggest law suit story
30.3.2007 - Kurdish-born doctor Yekta Uzunoglu given suspended sentence
28.3.2007 - AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
22.3.2007 - Vaclav Havel to hold symbolic hunger strike for Kurdish-born doctor
28.2.2006 - Yekta Uzunoglu seeks to clear his name in Czech courts
Minister makes light of Deputy Minister Korbel's corruption
Lidové noviny, 9 February 2009
DISCUSSION
The explanation of the Justice Minister in the corruption affair of Deputy Minister František Korbel is up for the "idiocy of the year" prize. After 13 years, the court has finally ruled that state institutions did indeed harm Dr Uzunoglu. Police falsely charged him and deprived him of his liberty and property for almost three years while the state attorney was asleep. The state also manipulated and falsified evidence.
Among other matters, Uzunoglu continued to pay rent on his flats while he was in prison, completely unaware they were being used for private off-duty meetings by the investigating police officers of what was later to be called the famous "Berdych gang". Uzunoglu also paid the phone bills for calls through which the officers ordered pizza deliveries. A building he owned that included his archives was set on fire, and he also survived an attempt to poison him in prison. Thirteen years later, he has had to listen while an inane state prosecutor proposed he once again be considered guilty for charges that had been overturned long ago.
As the law requires, after his rehabilitation Uzunoglu had to negotiate his compensation with the Justice Ministry. He entered those negotiations and was subsequently visited by the Deputy Minister, otherwise an attorney, who offered to represent him through the law firm in which he is partner. The fee he proposed was conventional and not bad at all – 15 % of the sum awarded. You don't have to try for much when billions are possibly at stake.
A somewhat simple response
Here we should note that Deputy Minister František Korbel is entrusted with managing the compensation department at the ministry. Therefore, he was proposing to litigate the demand for compensation against himself, as it were. Dr Uzunoglu rejected his offer, drew attention to Korbel's conflict of interest, and reported the affair to the ministry at a meeting that included a representative from the embassy of the country of which Uzunoglu is a citizen. Before Korbel learned that his activity had been reported to the other side, he managed send Dr Uzunoglu several e-mails from his firm's e-mail account.
Justice Minister Pospíšil has now give this rather simple response: "This is a matter of competing allegations. There was communication between them, but who offered what to whom cannot be proven."
About the author| Jan Urban, journalist, historian, signatory to Charter 77
František Korbel, Deputy Justice Minister, from the Green Party
Kurdish doctor demands high compensation from Czech state
07:26 - 03.02.2009
Prague - Kurdish doctor Yekta Uzunoglu who was unjustly charged with blackmail and torture and had to spend over two years in custody in the 1990s demands compensation of 50 milliards crowns from the Czech state, the news server iHned writes today.
Uzunoglu was acquitted of all charges in 2007. His case lasted nearly 13 years.
"Deals worth billions were marred and my property was damaged and stolen during my stay in custody," he told the server.
Uzunoglu filed the complaint today.
He points out that before his arrest by Czech police he was a business representative of the Skoda Praha company in Turkey and that he mediated contracts for the construction of several power stations, iHned writes.
According to the Justice Ministry, Uzunoglu received 5 million crowns as compensation for his unjust custody stay.
"This does not even cover the costs I paid for my lawyers," Uzunoglu said.
In July 2007, the court ruled that Uzunoglu should receive an apology and 250,000 crowns as compensation from Guerken Goenen who had testified that Uzunoglu along with another three accomplices tied him up, beat him and kept him locked in an office for a couple of days in September 1994.
The Czech Salamoun association in support of independent judiciary and a number of renowned personalities, including former Czech president Vaclav Havel, have stood up for Uzunoglu and later apologised to him.
Uzunoglu filed several complaints over the way the Czech media reported about his case.
MEP Jo Leinen questioned Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek about Uzunoglu's case two weeks ago in the European Parliament, iHned recalls.
($1 = 21.744 Czech crowns)