Posted on Jan 20, 2020
The speaker of the Czech Senate, Jaroslav Kubera, has died at the age of 72, a spokesman for the upper house said on Monday.
Kubera was a political veteran of the Civic Democrats party and had been a Senate member for more than 20 years.
He had been the speaker of the body since November 2018.
Kubera became well known among other things for being a passionate defender of cigarette smoking.
He derided smoking bans describing them as “anti-nicotine terrorism”.
“God also smokes, because if he didn’t we wouldn’t have any clouds.
“It would be constantly clear and we would all burn up in the heat,” he said on another occasion.
(dpa/NAN)