“IT JUST shows what sort of society we now have,” said the
Communists, with sniffy contempt for the ruling Social
Democrats. “A scandal without equal in recent Czech history,”
opined leaders of the conservative opposition, themselves no
strangers to sleaze. The allegation that Karel Srba, a senior
foreign-ministry official, had hired a hitman to murder a
journalist was certainly shocking. True, Sabina Slonkova (who,
in the event, was unharmed) had been digging up dirt for the
daily Mlada fronta Dnes on deals Mr Srba had helped to cut. But
a contract to kill her? This isn't Russia, tut-tutted Czechs.
Yet when police arrested Mr Srba they found $1m in cash and a
photograph of Miss Slonkova with the word “liquidate” scribbled
on its back. He must have been very brazen, very dim or very
well set up.  Mr Srba was certainly no ordinary bureaucrat. As
well as carrying out run-of-the-mill duties at the foreign
ministry, he worked as an agent of Czech military intelligence
under the codename Salima, responsible for th