Last year, a 52-year-old Czech IT specialist called Radek Koten shared an inflammatory post from a pro-Russian website which attacked mandatory vaccinations. “Cancerous enzymes” had been found in vaccine compounds, according to the article he shared (see below), and the doctors who made the discovery had all been “murdered.” Over the past year, he has also decorated his Facebook wall with claims that the 9/11 attacks were a CIA plot and that the United States wants to liquidate the Slavic race.

If Koten (pictured) was just another Czech citizen with a penchant for conspiracy theories from pro-Kremlin sites, his posts would not have attracted much notice. But he has vaulted to national prominence in the last few months, after first being elected as an MP for the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) and then going one better by becoming head of the Czech parliament’s powerful security committee.

It means that a man with an appetite for fake news now has a role in combating it, as one of his responsibilities is working closely with Czech intelligence services and the Czech government’s efforts to fight disinformation. And the pro-Russian websites that he has promoted are celebrating his rise. But his breakthrough is also testament to the country’s deepening political divisions, observers say, with its controversial new prime minister accused of empowering fringe parties like the SPD to stay in power.

One pro-EU MP called Koten’s appointment a “security risk.” Another commented on his refusal to say whether the Czech Republic should remain in the EU or or NATO, saying “it made him sick.” The “security committee isn’t a toy,” warned Milan Chovanec, the interior minister in the previous government, when he first heard that it could be handed to the SPD. “We’re in a situation when Europe is not safe.”