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The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic has turned down a third complaint by alleged Russian hacker Yevgeniy Nikulin that he was wrongly refused asylum in the Czech Republic and extradited to the United States to face charges.

The verdict upheld earlier rulings by lower-instance courts which said Nikulin did not have the right to asylum in the Czech Republic on humanitarian grounds.

Nikulin was arrested in Prague in 2016 with both Russian and US authorities calling for him to be handed over.

In March of this year he was extradited to the US where he is suspected of hacking computers at Silicon Valley firms including LinkedIn and Dropbox. The decision sparked protests from Russia and was criticized by President Miloš Zeman.

Government officials, employers and trade union leaders on Friday approved the priorities outlined in the government’s draft budget for 2019.

The Finance Ministry has proposed a state budget with a 40 billion crown deficit, that envisages a hike in public sector wages, higher pensions and more money for investments.

The government aims to scrap 1300 jobs in public administration, which should save around 3.4 billion crowns.

Twenty-two people have now been treated for intoxication after taking a dangerous synthetically made drug that has appeared in Ostrava. One addict died and another is in grave condition.

Police have warned there could be thousands of doses of the synthetic drug among addicts. Six people have been charged in connection with the case.

Czech President Milos Zeman is to pay an official three-day visit to Germany next week. Mr. Zeman will arrive in Berlin on Wednesday afternoon but his talks with the country’s leaders are scheduled for Friday.

He will be received with military honours by his German counterpart President Frank Walter Steinmeier on Friday morning and then meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday afternoon. The talks are expected to focus on a wide range of issues including bilateral cooperation, EU reform, the migrant crisis or relations with Russia.

The president will also meet with representatives of German companies doing business in the Czech Republic.

Saturday should be partly cloudy to overcast with rain in places and day temperatures between 18 and 22 degrees Celsius.

IT expert Marek Šimandl officially took up his post at the head of the country’s civilian intelligence agency on Friday.

Interior Minister Jan Hamáček said he was convinced that Šimandl was the right man for the job, who would stabilize the service and secure a high level of performance in the best interests of the Czech Republic.

Šimandl previously served as deputy head of the National Cyber and Information Security Agency where he was in charge of cyber security.

He replaces Jiří Šašek who was dismissed in May of this year following an audit into the service’s financial management.

Interior Minister Jan Hamáček has said he would push for an amendment to the foreigners’ law which would enable the authorities to extradite foreigners who had repeatedly committed crimes in the country faster.

The interior minister said in the lower house of Parliament on Friday that this should be made possible within a maximum period of six months, while at present it was taking the authorities two or more years.

In the course of 2016 and 2017 there were around four hundred such cases, he said. This should concern foreigners who have been convicted of crimes three or more times.

Acting Czech Foreign Minister and Social Democrat leader Jan Hamáček has defended the right of Czech MEPs to vote in line with their conscience in the European Parliament vote on whether to launch a procedure against Hungary on Wednesday.

Hamáček said that he too was concerned by some of the steps taken by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, such as those against the judiciary and the free press.

He said that unlike the Czech prime minister he would not take up the issue with those MEPs who had voted in favour of launching a procedure against Hungary since he understood their line of reasoning.

Czech police are preparing a case against a suspected Islamist alleged to have planned a bomb attack, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes reported on Friday.

The suspect, a Slovak convert to Islam who has visited Czech mosques, was arrested in November following a search of his residence that yielded instructions for making bombs and launching chemical attacks.

The initial complaint against the suspect, Dominik K, who went by the alias Abdul Rehman, was rejected by the Prague City Court and Constitutional Court, which found there had not been enough evidence to launch a prosecution.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (Ano) said Thursday that the European Parliament was wrong to try to sanction Hungary and his government “stands behind” Viktor Orban, whom he called an “ally”.

Mr Babiš also said he would take up the issue with Ano party members who voted in favour of launching the so-called Article 7 process against Hungary.

It total 448 MEPs, including 21 Czechs, voted in favour of triggering the sanctions procedure over Orban’s challenge to EU rules and values on media freedom, migration and rule of law dating back several years. Four MEPs elected on the Ano ticket voted for the sanctions – Pavel Telička and Petr Ježek, who are no longer in the party; and Dita Chrazanová and Martina Dlabajová.

Mr Babiš told journalists the move only served to divide Europe and that MEPs should be focusing on issues such as Brexit.