The third day of the main trial of the Magpie’s Nest case begins. On Wednesday, Babis’ wife, Monica, her brother Martin Herod, Jaroslav Valtink (ANO) and former company director Josef Nenadal should come to testify in the Prague Municipal Court. Court experts testified at Tuesday’s session. One of them, calligrapher Alice Soleck, stated that Andre Babis Jr.’s signature was apparently not real. Babish refused and added that his son was medically unfit to testify.
Former Prime Minister Andre Babis of the ANO movement accompanied by his lawyer Edward Bruna | Photo: Rene Volvik | Source: Czech Radio
According to the indictment, the head of the ANO movement, Andre Babis, confirmed that Pharma Sabi Hnizdo operates as a company that meets the requirements for obtaining European subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Objection to prejudice, sick boy, and signature dispute. The second day of Magpie’s Nest experience is over
Read the article
Jana Nagyova (Runs for Senate for ANO) Then, as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Farma Čapí hnízdo, she submitted an application in February 2008, guaranteeing the company a subsidy of 50 million kroner.
On the second day of the main trial, the court heard the expert witness. Calligraphy expert Alesh Shulik, who examined the authenticity of Babish’s three younger signatures, said, That signature of Andrej Babiš Jr. The deed of the acquisition of the company’s shares may not be real.
The second judicial expert was Vitozlav Hallek, an expert in the field of economics. He said the company would not have been able to pay its obligations between 2008 and 2013 – that is, after providing subsidies to SMEs – without the support of the holding company Agrofert.
The article continues under the report online.
According to him, the holding supported the farm mainly on the basis of payments related to advertisements. “If you remove the ads, the company will not be able to continue,” he said.
Babish announces that Halek is a fraud. But the court rejected the defendants’ attorney’s objection to bias.
And Andrej Babis also repeated during the trial that his son was ill and medically unfit to testify in court.
But Babis Jr himself assured iROZHLAS, cz that he will testify in person at the Prague Municipal Court on Friday. “I have been summoned and I have the right to do so. He wrote, repeating what he told the police, ‘there is no reason to fear justice.’ There he said in the past that his father had turned him into a white horse.
In his first statement on Monday, Babish denied his conviction and reiterated several times that this was a politicized criminal trial.
According to him, he is being tried because he entered politics. He also sees the politicization of the case in the fact that he was charged three weeks before the elections.
According to Nagyova, when she applied in 2008, she believed that Pharma Sabi Henizdu had fulfilled the conditions for receiving the subsidy.
According to the Criminal Code, Andrei Babis and Jana Nagyova face imprisonment from five to ten years. But the public prosecutor proposes conditions and fines to them. The President of the Court, Janot, indicated from the start of the trial that Babis’ criminal offense could be changed to the offense of harming the financial interests of the European Union.
