Sroubek caveat on home just before break-in: Nats
Bennett asks if police questioned Czech over burglary of estranged wife’s property
A$2.3m house was burgled days after Czech man Karel Sroubek lodged a financial interest in it, National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett has said in Parliament.
The revelations are the latest in the Sroubek case, which Immigration NZ is reviewing after new allegations came to light that, if true, would contradict the reasons why he was granted NZ residency. On Tuesday it emerged that Sroubek placed a caveat on the title of a Remuera property on October 26. It was advertised for sale at $2.3m, but has since been withdrawn from the market. Sroubek’s in-laws, who appear to be based in Russia, are listed as the property’s owners, and court documents show Sroubek had paid more than $160,000 towards clearing a loan held on the house. During Question Time yesterday, Bennett asked the Prime Minister whether Immigration NZ’s investigation would consider a burglary at the property.
“Will new information being looked at in the Karel Sroubek case include the burglary of his estranged wife’s house just days after Sroubek learnt it had gone on the market?”
Bennett then asked if Immigration NZ would look at whether police questioned Sroubek on the burglary, and if there was any information about “recent intimidation by Karel Sroubek”.
Responding on behalf of the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said National was after “some cheap political points”, and said the investigation would find out all the relevant information.
During the General Debate, Bennett said that Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway had done the “bare minimum” to make a decision most people would find “abhorrent”.
She listed all the offences Sroubek had been charged with, as well as the house that she said had been burgled.
“When the house goes on for sale, which he didn’t want to happen because he put a caveat on it, the house has been burgled.”
National has continued to pressure the Government on the case, with justice spokesman Mark Mitchell and immigration spokesman Michael Woodhouse pressing Lees-Galloway in Question Time about the break-in. But Lees-Galloway repeatedly declined to answer, saying he did not want to prejudice the investigation nor any action that might follow that.
Police declined to confirm whether they attended an incident at the address, citing privacy reasons.
On Tuesday National revealed a 2010 court document that showed a man and his family were placed in a police witness-protection programme because of alleged actions by Sroubek and two other men with connections to the Hells Angels.
The High Court in Auckland was told that Sroubek, or Jan Antolik as he was known then, went to the person’s home with two other men and assaulted him and threatened him with a knife over a debt of $12,000.
“After this incident, [name withheld] went to the police and he and his family were placed in the witness protection programme. Even so, [name withheld] says that two anonymous threats were made to his immediate family after he had made his complaint to police,” the court document said.
Woodhouse also asked LeesGalloway in the House how much weight he gave to representations from Sroubek’s supporters who were not members of his family. “Not much,” Lees-Galloway replied. Radio NZ on Tuesday spoke with former Wiri inmate Alex Swney, the disgraced former chief executive of Auckland’s Heart of the City business organisation, who spent about a year in prison with Sroubek.
“If he was a gangster before he came in, he is a diametrically opposed person, a changed person,” Swney told Radio NZ.
Swney said Sroubek’s fears for his life were very real if he were to be deported to the Czech Republic: “There is no doubt in my mind he was deeply, deeply concerned about his chances . . . No question about that.”