President under fire for recent pardon

There has been fresh criticism of a pardon granted by President Vaclav Klaus. It concerns Anna Benešová, former director of the private Metropolitan University in Prague, who was given a suspended sentence for bribery and fraud. The daily Lidové noviny noted on Friday that the woman pardoned had ties with the president’s wife Livia, and pointed out that the reason cited for her pardon, which was to enable her to care for her seriously ill husband, was nonsensical since a suspended sentence did not prevent her from doing so. The paper noted that the president’s pardon had given Benešová a clean criminal record.