Last September, in connection with the debate about the use of encrypted phones, the Austrian posted on the X social network that “at the time of forming the government and taking over power from ANO, we were worried that the security division of Agrofert was spying on us.”
According to Agrofert, this is not true and he wants an apology from the Austrian for the false statement or at least the attempt to create the impression that Agrofert is eavesdropping on someone.
“It is particularly damaging that the said statements were not made by an ordinary citizen, but by the defendant Mr. Vít Rakušan, who is also the Minister of the Interior of the Czech Republic, who can be assumed to have a higher level of information, especially when it comes to information about illegal wiretapping of persons, and the public perceives the information communicated by him in this sense very seriously,” said Agrofert in a statement. According to his legal representative Jiří Urbanek, the reputation of the agricultural conglomerate founded by Andrej Babiš (ANO) was affected.
According to the legal representative of the Austrian and STAN Lukáš Vajda, this is a groundless lawsuit. “The impugned statement cannot in any case be considered a statement of fact. There were reasonable and definite reasons on which he made that claim. The defendant (Austrian) was in good faith and had no reason to believe that some statement was not true,” Vajda said in court. “The defendant’s statement describes some feeling, some concern – it is impossible that it was a factual statement by the defendant,” he added.
Vajda also mentioned that Agrofert was associated with similar matters in the past and that Babiš, as the chairman of ANO, was preparing a plot against the Austrian. “There was definitely a certain concern there, and it arose from what was discussed in the media space,” said Vajda, who also emphasized that there was no direct allegation that anything was actually happening in any of the defendant’s statements.
The court adjourned the hearing until mid-August in order to summon the witnesses proposed by the defendant.
The Austrian slammed the opposition for spreading fear over migration
Homemade
