Former Czech Prime Minister Gross dies at age of 45

Former Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross died from a long illness on Thursday at the age of 45, spokeswoman of Gross's Party the Social Democrat(CSSD) has confirmed.

Czech President Milos Zeman on Thursday sent his condolences to Gross's family.

Gross was the CSSD's promising member in the 1990s. He became the youngest prime minister in the country's history at the age of 34, and headed Czech government from July 2004 to April 2005. He was also the interior minister between 2000 and 2004 in the Social Democrat governments of Milos Zeman (2000-2002) and Vladimir Spidla (2002-2004).

Gross's political career was wrecked by a scandal with the dubious acquisition of a flat in Prague's Barrandov, after which he lost his seat of prime minister after just eight months in office. He withdrew from politics in 2005.

The unclear origin of the money to purchase the flat in Prague was not the only scandal connected with him. In 2007, he earned dozens of millions of crowns in a transaction with the shares of one of the leading Czech domestic power dealers, Moravia Energo. He bought the shares for 20 million crowns (770,000 U.S. dollars) two years after he lost the seat of prime minister. Six months later, he sold the shares at a price five times of the money he paid for them.

Gross did not appear in the public recently and he was treated privately. He and his family refused to talk about his illness.

Gross accepted the interview of Czech Television in April 2014, when he was still fighting the serious illness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. During the interview, he apologized to all those who have supported him 10 years ago, and said he had disappointed them. (1 U.S. dollar = 25.57 crowns) Enditem