The former Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has been acquitted of charges of subsidy fraud just four days before a presidential election in which he is standing as a candidate.
The verdict, handed down in Prague’s municipal court, amounts to a major vindication for Babiš – a billionaire tycoon and one of the Czech Republic’s richest men – and may boost his chances of prevailing in next weekend’s poll, which has been partly overshadowed by his longstanding legal troubles.
The ex-PM, 68, had been accused, along with a former aide, Jana Nagyová, of illegally obtaining €2m (£1.7m) in EU small business funds for the development of Stork’s Nest, a lavish hotel and conference centre in rural Bohemia, about 40 miles south of Prague, by concealing that it was part of Babiš’s vast multi-sector Agrofert conglomerate, thus making it ineligible for such subsidies.
However, after a 15-day trial, which originally commenced last September, the judge Jan Šott ruled that the evidence did not support the indictment’s claim that a crime had been committed.
Neither Babiš nor his co-defendant were in court to hear Šott read out his verdict, which the judge followed with a lengthy explanation.
But the former PM reacted on Twitter, writing: “Innocent! I am very glad that we have an independent judiciary and the court has confirmed what I have been saying from the beginning. That I am innocent and have done nothing illegal.”
Babiš – who founded the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (Ano) party in 2011 on an explicit anti-corruption platform – has long dismissed the allegations as “politically motivated”. The result of a seven-year police investigation, they were brought to court after a 2021 general election defeat resulted in him losing his parliamentary immunity against prosecution.
The ruling does not necessarily spell the end of the case. Prosecutors, who had been demanding a three-year suspended sentence plus a fine, could appeal against the verdict to the high court.
Nevertheless, the immediate effect is to allow Babiš to contest the presidential poll, in which voters cast their ballots on Friday and Saturday, without a legal shadow looming over him.
Babiš is vying with seven other candidates to replace the populist current incumbent, Miloš Zeman, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
Surveys show the former prime minister running strongly but in a tight race with two other candidates, Petr Pavel, a retired army general and former Nato military commander, and Danuše Nerudová, an economist and academic who is attempting to become the first female Czech head of state.
The top two candidates will go forward to a second round poll in late January. Opinion polls have previously indicated that Babiš is likely to lose to both Pavel and Nerudová in a run-off election.
