Czech official ordered from above to close Ostrava dump case

On July 1, 2026, Tomislav Stršelec, a department director at the Czech Ministry of the Environment, signed a ruling that cleared the Ostrava-based firm Ridera Bohemia in a case over dumping at the Heřmanice spoil heap in Ostrava. Correspondence shows the final verdict had already been drafted for him in advance by his superior — the official merely tweaked the finished document slightly and signed it.

The ruling not only cleared the company of suspicion of illegally bringing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste to the heap after coal mining, but also spared it a theoretical bill running into billions of crowns to remove that waste.

A ready-made verdict by email

Journalists later managed to review an email with the subject line “materials for the task” that Stršelec had received. In it, his superior — senior director Simeona Zikmundová — wrote: “Dear director, in connection with the case under review, I am instructing you to proceed from the materials attached below, which I ask you to supplement, adjust if necessary, and then carry out the following steps.” Attached to the email was not just the future ruling itself but also six related decisions that needed to be issued as part of the same proceedings.

According to the text of the email, Stršelec was left no room to independently assess the company's guilt or weigh the evidence himself — he acted more as an administrator and courier. Zikmundová instructed her subordinate directly: “notify the accused / forward for information to the email box of the company Ridera Bohemia.”

An influential official

Until this year, Simeona Zikmundová held the post of state secretary at the ministry, effectively running its administrative apparatus. Under the ministry's new leadership from the Motorists party, she became senior director for the execution of public administration. In 2022, Zikmundová was a candidate for a leadership post at the Supreme Audit Office, but then-president Miloš Zeman refused to appoint her over “moral qualities,” and the head of the auditors, Miloslav Kala, also opposed her appointment: Zikmundová had previously worked at the office during the tenure of his predecessor, František Dohnal, who was convicted of blocking an audit of his own office at a time when he was suspected of embezzling public funds. Today Zikmundová is considered one of the most influential officials at the ministry.

It also previously emerged that Stršelec's final ruling in the Heřmanice case contains at least seven passages that in places are copied almost word for word from the defence submitted by Ridera Bohemia itself, which the company sent to the official just days before the verdict closing the investigation. Zikmundová did not respond to a request for an interview about the email: she did not pick up the phone and did not reply to a message even a week later.

What the Heřmanice spoil heap is hiding

One of Central Europe's largest spoil heaps sits just 20 minutes by tram from the centre of Ostrava and is managed by the state enterprise Diamo. Covering more than 100 hectares and holding 12 million tonnes of post-mining rock, the heap has been slowly burning inside for years. Nearby lies a dump of highly toxic sludge, and its ignition would trigger a serious environmental disaster.

To stop the fire spreading to that hazardous section, a dividing “air wall” was planned — in effect a giant trench 440 metres long, 40 metres deep and up to 150 metres wide. Diamo later decided to fill in that trench with non-combustible material, and the Ostrava firm Ridera Bohemia, contracted by the state enterprise, brought in 568,000 tonnes of material — reportedly crushed stone produced to state standards, including material from demolished buildings. An inspection later found chunks of concrete, wood, plastic and cables inside the heap. The firm has always maintained that it used only certified material, backed this up with expert assessments, and described the inspectorate that suspected it as biased.

In spring, the company asked the ministry to take the case away from the inspectorate and decide it itself — which is exactly what happened in July. At the same time, Minister Igor Červený (of the Motorists party) appointed a new head of the inspectorate, Pavel Straka, who, as journalists established, has a troubled family history. Straka then also halted further checks into how safe the heap is in terms of fire spreading to the risky sections.

The official had asked not to be given the case

A few months before signing the ruling, in May, Stršelec himself had asked Zikmundová to excuse him and his entire department from the case: he pointed out that he had already acted as an appeals body on it and considered himself an interested party. Zikmundová rejected his arguments: “In the case under review, I am not aware of any circumstances indicating that any employee of the department has any interest, and if so what specifically, in the outcome of the proceedings,” she wrote to her subordinate. The case stayed with Stršelec.

Ministry spokeswoman Jana Šillerová did not answer specific questions about the instruction email, referring only to a press release that had already been issued: it states merely that Minister Igor Červený has ordered a review of the entire decision-making process in the Heřmanice case. Stršelec himself, asked by phone about the reasons behind his ruling, would only repeat: “Please contact the press spokeswoman.”

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz