Daily news summary
Court upholds ten-year prison sentence for former Prague imam
An appellate court in Prague on Thursday upheld a 10-year-sentence for former Prague imam Samer Shehadeh convicted for supporting and financing terrorism. Mr Shehadeh was found guilty of helping his brother and sister-in-law to travel to Syria to join the terrorist organisation Al-Nusra Front and of supporting the group financially.
The ex-imam has confessed to the actions, but said he didn’t believe they were unlawful as he didn’t recognise the Syrian government and didn’t view the Al-Nusra Front as terrorist.
Mr. Shehaded left the Czech Republic in 2017 but was later arrested in Jordan and handed over to the Czech authorities.
Seznam claims to have found details on origin of hacking attacks on Czech hospitals
Over the past two months a number of Czech hospitals have faced cyberattacks. Now a collaboration between investigative journalists at news site Seznam Zprávy and a team of “ethical hackers” has resulted in the identification of one of those who took part in the attack, Seznam wrote on Thursday. The name of the individual is Alexander Tchernishov and his last traced place of activity was in a neighbourhood of northern Moscow.
Mr Tchernishov was contacted by Seznam and has denied the claim, saying that he is merely the owner of a Russian internet company and that the traced IP addresses, which led the hacker team to him, do not belong to his company, but rather to one of its clients who rented them from a third party.
Seznam says it has since found more information which it plans to release in the future.
Prague Castle still number one tourist attraction in Czechia
The most popular tourist destination in the Czech Republic last year was traditionally Prague Castle with nearly 2.6 million visitors, according to figures released by the Czech Tourism agency on Thursday.
The Petřín funicular with 2.2 million visitors came second and Prague Zoo with 1.5 million visitors was the third most popular tourist site, according to data released by Czech Tourism on Thursday.
Among the other top 10 most visited landmarks are Prague's Old Jewish quarter and the Petřín tower, as well as the former industrial complex of Dolní Vítkovice in the North Moravian city of Ostrava.
Number of Covid-19 cases up on Wednesday
The number of newly registered coronavirus cases in the Czech Republic increased again on Wednesday, with 74 new cases reported, according to Czech Health Ministry statistics.
The number of registered cases has reached 8,721. 304 people have died and 5,836 have recovered from the disease. At the moment, 157 people are hospitalized with COVID 19, some 30 of them are in serious condition.
Another 1,000 miners in Darkov to be tested for Covid-19
Another large-scale testing is due to take place at the Darkov mine in Karviná in the Moravian Silesian region this weekend, after an outbreak of Covid-19 cases among the miners.
The virus was first detected last week and by Thursday, the number of cases among the miners and their families has increased to over 150.
Nearly 900 employees of the mine have already been tested and another 1,000 are to be tested this weekend.
The mine is operating as usual but strict hygiene conditions are in place.
People in Need launch ‘SOS World’ campaign to help those hit by coronavirus
Czech NGO People in Need has launched a public collection ‘SOS World’ to help people in the poorest countries of the world, who were hit the hardest by the current coronavirus situation, many of them losing their livelihoods.
According to a press release issued by People in Need on Thursday, for these people the consequences of Covid-19, such a famine and malnutrition, can be we even worse than the disease itself.
The NGO has already launched a public collection and fundraising campaign SOS Czech Republic to help people most impacted by the economic repercussions of the Covid-19 outbreak.
It also offers financial support to those in need, operates a helpline and helps children from disadvantaged backgrounds and families to continue their education online.
Weather
Friday is expected to be sunny to partly cloudy with some rain towards the evening. Daytime temperatures will range between 19 and 23 degrees Celsius.
