The appellate court will decide in the case of the sale of UK buildings

Prague - The Court of Appeal in Prague will decide today on the case of the sale of buildings belonging to Czech Railways to Charles University, in which eight individuals face charges. The court began examining the case in July, but postponed the public hearing to September due to the need to supplement certain evidence. Last August, the Prague municipal court provisionally acquitted the defendants, stating that while the acts described in the indictment occurred at least in part, they are not criminal acts.

The state prosecutor has appealed the decision, referencing inconsistencies in the reasoning of the judgment during the previous hearing. The appellate panel can either confirm the ruling of the municipal court or return the case for a new trial. The defendants deny the charges, and their lawyers seek to have the prosecutor's appeal dismissed.

The buildings of Czech Railways on Opletalova Street in the center of Prague were acquired by the company Apuro in 2007 for 203 million CZK - according to the indictment, at a price deliberately undervalued by the accused expert Vladimir Pažout. In 2010, the company sold the properties to the university for 402.5 million CZK, even though the usual property price was around 300 million CZK according to the case file. Moreover, the Ministry of Education subsidized the purchase with 372 million CZK.

According to the indictment, the investment plan was successfully pushed through due to an agreement between Apuro board member Otakar Otta and the head of the university's development department, Petr Kostelecký, and by using distorted assessments from three other accused experts: Karel Urban, Jan Konty, and Lenka Kučerová. Stanislav Sádovský and Pavel Kabát also face charges. The state prosecutor claims that the state lost more than one hundred million CZK due to false expert opinions during the transaction.