Suspected Armenian gang members acquitted

The Municipal Court of Prague has acquitted three Armenians and a Chechen man of conspiring to murder an Armenian businessman in Prague. Prosecutors accused the men of being members of a criminal, Soviet-style gang and of having hired a hitman who killed a driver and stabbed another man in the attempt to murder his target. Another defendant in the case was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for blackmail, and another to 18 months, already served, for unlawful possession of a weapon and driver’s licence forgery. The prosecution appealed the decision but lost a bid to keep the men in police custody.