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Two of the five Czechs who were sentenced on Thursday in a Swiss court were released from custody after being held for a number of hours. All five are former managers of the Mostecká Uhelna coal mining company and received substantial prison sentences for asset stripping, fraud, money-laundering and breach of trust during the privatization of the company in the 1990s. Of the defendants, only Petr Kraus and Antonín Koláček were present at the sentencing and the two were temporarily detained. The Czech authorities have said that they have no plans to extradite the remaining three defendants based on international agreements.

The Czech food inspection authority has seized a shipment of Polish mushrooms which contained four times the allowed levels of pesticides. The authorities have notified the EU’s rapid alert system of the find. Long-term consumption of the mushrooms could harm consumers’ health, according to the authorities. The contaminated mushrooms were discovered in a shop in Trutnov, east Bohemia, and their importer now faces fines.

A fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas will have to pay a fine of 118,000 US dollars for major breaches of security measures which caused a massive explosion in April. Fifteen people died and hundreds of others were injured as a result of the blast in a town where the vast majority of inhabitants claim to have Czech heritage. Some 350 buildings were also destroyed and a 27-meter wide crater has formed. The Czech government gave approximately 200,000 dollars to the people of West, most of the money was meant to rebuild the local Sokol building.

A Swiss court handed down prison sentences to five Czechs on Thursday for asset stripping, fraud, money-laundering and breach of trust, in a case surrounding the privatization of the Czech Republic’s second largest coal mining company, Mostecká Uhelna. The former managers, who received between 16 and 52 months in prison, used the company’s own assets to buy a majority stake in the firm, diverting some of the money into Swiss bank accounts. The Swiss authorities launched an investigation into the matter in 2011. Two of the defendants – Petr Kraus and Antonín Koláček – were detained in court, though the others were not present at the sentencing. The sixth defendant in the case, the 86-year-old Belgian citizen Jacques de Groote, will have to pay a fine for his involvement. Charges are still pending against the Czech former managers in the Czech Republic, though they may have to be dropped given the Swiss court’s decision.