On 9 October 2008, an official launch party was held for Paroubek's book "The Czech Republic, Europe and the world through the eyes of a social democrat" () in the Monarch restaurant in Prague. Shortly after the end of the event there was an altercation between two of the guests, businessman Bohumír Ďuričko and Václav Kočka jr., the son of a carousel operator. Kočka was killed in the incident. Ďuričko was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 12.5 years in prison. Jiří Paroubek initially distanced himself from the incident and claimed he did not know Ďuričko and had not invited him to the event. However, relations between Paroubek and Ďuričko had been publicly known since at least 2005, when Paroubek had planned to spend the holidays with Ďuričko's family, but cancelled the plans when it became known that Ďuričko was a communist secret service agent.