Czechs expel two Russian diplomats tied to bogus ‘assassination plot’

The Czech government has decided to expel two Russian diplomats, giving them 48 hours to leave the country, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš announced on Friday.

The move follows on bogus information that a Russian agent was sent to Prague in March to kill elected Prague officials using the poison ricin.

Babiš and Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček said the bogus plot stemmed from a dispute between Russian embassy staffers.

One had fed false information to Czech intelligence services that the other was targeting Prague’s Lord Mayor and district mayors who had taken symbolic steps angering the Kremlin.

The weekly Respekt wrote in April that Andrei Konchakov, deputy director of the embassy's Russian Centre for Science and Culture, had brought ricin into the Czech Republic from Russia.