“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 the assignments of military spies under diplomatic cover. Even before the alleged murder plot, the defence minister, Jaroslav Tvrdik, had his doubts about his integrity. So Mr Tvrdik ordered that agent Salima be removed from his duties. For good measure, he also sacked the military-intelligence chief.

The police are now looking into Mr Srba's possible influence on tenders and property deals, particularly one concerning a building in Moscow owned by the Czech state which had been rented out at a suspiciously low rate. The police will also look again into unexplained assaults on journalists and the shooting of a businessman with close ties to the Czech government. Mr Srba will have to explain how he came by the wads of cash found by the police and how he renovated two farms outside Prague on his paltry state salary.

The affair has apparently not hurt the Social Democrat-headed government re-elected earlier this summer under a new prime minister, Vladimir Spidla. But it has embarrassed Jan Kavan, the outgoing foreign minister, who last month took over as chairman of the UN's General Assembly. There is no suggestion that Mr Kavan connived at murder or corruption. But he had appointed Mr Srba to run an anti-corruption campaign in his ministry and had at first vigorously defended him against the charges that have shaken the nation.