The Regional Court in Brno yesterday approved a plea agreement for Jiri Svachula, former ANO deputy mayor of Brno-střed district, in relation to the Stoka corruption case. Svachula negotiated with prosecutors a sentence of seven years and eight months in prison and the forfeiture of part of his property worth millions of crowns.
The Stoka (‘Gutter’) case concerns the manipulation of public contracts at the Brno-střed Town Hall between 2015 and 2019. The case first went to trial in September 2020, but the verdict was overturned by the appeals court a year ago.
According to the original verdict, issued in May 2022, the perpetrators formed an organised group with a structured hierarchy, with the aim of awarding public contracts and providing non-public information to selected companies. The manipulated contracts were worth more than CZK 260 million, with the defendants set to receive bribes worth tens of millions.
Former deputy mayor Svachula was the head of the organised crime group, according to prosecutors. He has been convicted of participating in a criminal enterprise, arranging an advantage in the awarding of a public contract, and accepting a bribe. The newly agreed sentence is lower than the one imposed by the court in 2022, when he received 9.5 years in prison and also forfeited part of his property.
Eight other individuals and two companies were convicted in the original trial, with two people acquitted. The verdict was appealed by both the defendants and the prosecutor, who sought harsher sentences for some of the defendants. The original verdict was overturned in November 2024 by the High Court in Olomouc, which ruled that the trial had suffered from serious flaws that made the verdict untenable.
The Brno regional court reopened the case on Wednesday.
All of the defendants convicted in the original proceedings have now entered into plea agreements with prosecutors.
Public prosecutor Petr Sereda said the plea agreements had significantly accelerated the entire court proceedings, and urged the court to approve them. Court hearings on further plea agreements are scheduled for today.
The court yesterday also approved the plea bargain of businessman Lubomir Smolka, who had negotiated a suspended sentence of two years and ten months with four-year probation, a fine of CZK 3 million, and a ten-year ban on holding an office in a statutory body. The court also approved the agreement of Smolka’s company Kros-stav, imposing a fine of CZK 1 million and a ban on participation in public procurement for five years.
Later, the court approved the plea agreement of businessman Pavel Ovcarin, imposing a prison sentence of five years and a penalty of CZK 600,000.
