Prosecutor requests custody for latest detainee in arson case

The State Prosecutor’s Office has requested that a fifth person held in connection with a suspected arson attack on an arms factory in the city of Pardubice be remanded in custody. The suspect was charged with membership of a terrorist group on Sunday.

In recent days a court in Pardubice remanded three of four previous detainees in custody. The other, who is an American citizen, is in pre-trial detention in Slovakia.

The alleged group behind the incident in Pardubice said that “the Earthquake Faction” had started the blaze on March 20. They said the factory had been a “production centre for Israeli weapons”, due to the operator’s “role in the Israeli genocide in Gaza”.

Carrying out a terrorist attack and membership in a terrorist group can bring sentences of up to 20 years under Czech law.