Zeman must apologize for the defamatory statement, the Supreme Court confirmed

After one year, the Supreme Court decided the dispute between former President Miloš Zeman and his adviser at the time, Zdenek Šarapatka.

He confirmed that Zeman must apologize for his defamatory statement.

“The Supreme Court rejected Miloš Zeman’s appeal. The details will be available after the original decision is drawn up, which will be within 60 days at the latest,” Supreme Court spokeswoman Gabriela Tomíčková told Seznam Zprávy.

In a November 2017 Barrandov television broadcast, Zeman said about Šarapatek that he had been fired in the past as a member of his council of advisers at the Government Office for incompetence.

The court previously said that was not true and ordered Zeman to apologise. But he did not do it and after the final judgment, he filed an appeal to the Supreme Court last year. But now he didn’t succeed.

In addition to the apology, the regional court has already directly ordered Zeman to pay the costs of the proceedings. In total, it was 29,027 crowns. As Seznam Zprávy previously wrote, Zeman did not pay this amount from his own money, it was paid by the Office of the President of the Republic.

In addition, it turned out that Zeman also had lawyer Marko Nespala paid from public money in this dispute. For which the Office of the President of the Republic was subsequently fined by the Financial Office. She had to pay 148,910 crowns and also a penalty in the amount of 15,491 crowns.

Marek Nespala then returned the money he received for representing Zeman. He sent back 334,439 crowns to the office of the President of the Republic.