Former Czech PM Stanislav Gross dies at 45

Former leftwing Czech prime minister Stanislav Gross, one of the youngest premiers ever in the EU until his resignation over a financing scandal, died Thursday at the age of 45 after battling illness, local media reported.

The Social Democrat was 34 years old when he became head of government in 2004 but was forced to step down less than a year later over the scandal concerning the financing of his luxury Prague apartment.

Gross suffered from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease — a progressive degenerative nervous system disease that weakens muscles and physical functioning — according to the Czech news agency CTK.

He worked as a lawyer after leaving government, when he was unable to explain the provenance of some 44,000 euros ($47,000) used to buy his apartment.

A one-time interior minister, Gross said last year: “I think I was a good interior minister on the one hand and a bad prime minister on the other.”