Czech parliament votes to shield PM Babis from trial on EU subsidy fraud charges

PRAGUE, March 5 (Reuters) - The lower house of the Czech parliament voted on Thursday to deny a court request for billionaire businessman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis to face trial in long-running prosecution over an alleged fraud in drawing a European Union subsidy.

Babis, head of the populist ANO party, returned to power after winning an election in October last year, despite charges in the case involving a 2 million euro subsidy granted in 2008, before he entered politics, for building a hotel and conference centre outside Prague called Stork Nest.

Deputies for ANO and ruling coalition partners, the far right, pro-Russian SPD party and the anti-Green Deal Motorists, voted on Thursday not to lift parliamentary immunity from Babis, voting records showed. The vote means Babis is protected from prosecution in the case until the end of the parliament's four-year term in 2029.

• Babis has denied any wrongdoing in the case where prosecutors allege he hid his ownership of a firm to qualify for the subsidy, which was meant for small businesses and not large groups like the one Babis owned

• He has argued, without showing evidence, that the case was politically motivated to harm his political activity.

• "The system of traditional parties realised that I represent a fundamental danger to them, because I refused to steal and they could not corrupt me," he told parliament on Thursday.

• An appeals court overturned a Babis' acquittal in the case by a lower court last year, sending the case back to the lower court.

• The parliament's vote prevents the lower court from proceeding with a retrial.

• Babis has built a multi-billion dollar empire of farming, chemicals, food processing and other firms, including real estate and fertility clinics across Europe.

• The parliament on Thursday also denied a request to lift the immunity of Babis' ruling coalition ally and SPD chief Tomio Okamura, who has been charged with hate speech.

• Okamura called the charges an attempt to criminalise political opposition.