The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic rejected the appeals on points of law of all five convicted persons in the Bereta case, which concerned the leaking of information from police files and criminal proceedings. It decided without a public hearing; its spokeswoman Gabriela Tomíčková reported the outcome on 20 October 2026. The decision upholds the final verdict, under which a private detective received a two-year unsuspended sentence and the other convicted persons, among them a former public prosecutor, received suspended sentences and fines. According to reports, the five denied guilt from the start.
The main part of the appeals was aimed against the use of audio and video recordings made inside the detective's car. Surveillance of the interior in 2014 to 2016 was approved by a prosecutor, not by a judge. The Supreme Court stated that the procedure of the authorities in criminal proceedings corresponded to the law as worded at the time and to case-law. According to Tomíčková, it is advisable today to obtain a judge's approval, because it gives greater protection of privacy, but under the rules then in force the absence of judicial approval did not necessarily make the recordings unusable.
The Okresní soud Praha-východ punished the former prosecutor most severely at first instance, imposing three years and four months in prison; it gave the detective three years and one of the former police officers two and a half years. The appellate panel reduced the sentences: the detective received two years unsuspended, the former prosecutor and the police officer three-year suspended sentences with a five-year probation period, and the other convicted persons suspended sentences. For most of them the verdict also includes fines of CZK 50,000 to 240,000 and bans on activity.
According to the final verdict, the detective asked the former prosecutor, the police officer and a customs officer for non-public information from files. The accused acted conspiratorially and, according to the verdict, knew that the information would serve various interest groups.
Chronology
- — The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic announced that it had rejected the appeals on points of law of all five convicted persons in the Bereta case, which concerned the leaking of information from police files and criminal proceedings. ČTK / České noviny Echo24