Czech drug-smuggler Karel Sroubek has been granted parole, with the board expected to release the full details of its decision tomorrow.

Sroubek - aka Jan Antolik - will be freed in September.

He was serving a term of five years and nine months for bringing a drug used to make Ecstasy into the country hidden among legitimate goods.

He was due to finish this sentence in early 2022.

Sroubek first came to New Zealand in 2003 on a false passport in the name of Jan Antolik.

He was then found guilty in 2011 of using a false passport and lying to immigration officials, but was discharged without conviction by the trial judge, who believed his evidence.

The representative kickboxer had claimed he had to flee his home in the Czech Republic in fear of corrupt police officers and a criminal after witnessing a murder.