Associate of "Guru Jára" extradited from Philippines to Czechia

The Czech police have extradited Barbora Plášková, the convicted associate of the man nicknamed "Guru Jára", from the Philippines to Czechia. The pair had been on the run since 2012 to avoid serving prison sentences for rape. "Guru Jára", whose real name is Jaroslav Dobeš, was extradited via Taipei to a Prague prison on August 9. Police said at the time that the same fate would await his associate within a few weeks.

Plášková faces a five-year prison sentence for helping Dobeš to rape a number of women between 2004 and 2007. According to the court ruling, she assisted him in pressuring his female pupils into having ritualised sex with him under the pretence of offering lessons in yoga and Eastern philosophy. Some of the victims suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.

The pair were arrested in the Philippines in 2015 and then spent over eight years in an immigration detention centre in Manila. The final decision on their extradition took the local authorities over seven years, as they took advantage of all the available possibilities for appeal and judicial review, and also tried applying for religious asylum in the Philippines. All court proceedings therefore had to take place in their absence.