Prague, March 19 (CTK) – Duncan Sellars, former manager of the Czech-based Tatra lorry maker, told a Prague court Wednesday that former Czech deputy defence minister Martin Bartak had asked the then Tatra supervisory board head William Cabaniss for a few million dollars in 2008.

The money was to be paid in exchange for solving the troubles that accompanied Tatra’s supply of lorries to the Czech military.

After the offer was made, the meeting was ended and the Americans left the room, Sellars said.

Sellars and Cabaniss are considered crucial witnesses in the case in which Bartak and Czech armament dealer Michal Smrz are suspected of corruption.

According to the indictment, Bartak, in his capacity as deputy defence minister, was trying to influence the course of the state order for the supply of several hundred Tatra lorries.

Bartak committed the crime of bribe taking when he unsuccessfully asked Cabaniss for five million U.S. dollars while on a business trip to Centreville, USA, in February 2008, the state attorney says.

Bartak dismisses having made any corruption offer.

Sellars told the court Wednesday that he accompanied Cabaniss to the meeting with Czech representatives, at which Cabaniss, former U.S. ambassador to Prague, talked to the then Czech PM Mirek Topolanek (Civic Democrats, ODS) and other members of the Czech delegation including Bartak.

Sellars said he was only listening to the Cabaniss-Bartak conversation.

Sellars claims that Bartak said a few millions would do for the Czechs to solve Tatra’s problem with the Czech order.

Afterwards, Sellars says, Cabaniss ended the conversation and left the room.

The Americans discussed Bartak’s offer on their way home, Sellars said, adding that he had not heard anything similar before, the less so from a high-ranking government official. Bartak asked for a bribe quite directly, Sellars told the court.

Bartak’s defence lawyer Josef Monsport challenged the trustworthiness of Sellars’ testimony. He said Sellars described some details from the Centreville meeting differently ffrom what he said during the previous police questionings.

Sellars and Cabaniss’s testimonies also partly differed from each other, Monsport said.

Bartak called Sellars’ testimony a lie.

“He was a member of the [Tatra] company’s board of directors and he bears responsibility for its unsatisfactory financial situation, or if you want, its total bankruptcy, and I have the suspicion that also for siphoning off assets from it,” Bartak told journalists.

The other accused in the Tatra case, Smrz, is owner of the MPI Group armament company. He is suspected of an attempted fraud.

Smrz allegedly tried to lure money from Tatra managers by pretending having influence on the Czech cabinet members.

Both Bartak and Smrz plead not guilty.

http://praguemonitor.com/2014/03/20/tatra-manager-ex-vice-minister-sought-bribe-worth-millions