Court case against home guard: prosecutor seeks ten years for terrorism
A Prague court is hearing a case involving members of the association Czechoslovak Soldiers in Reserve for Peace. The state prosecutor is seeking ten-year sentences for support of terrorism and illegal weapons possession.
Court case against home guard: prosecutor seeks ten years for terrorism
Prague City Court is hearing the case of four people connected to the association Czechoslovak Soldiers in Reserve for Peace. The chief prosecutor from the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office in the capital is seeking ten-year sentences in the strictest prison category for three of the defendants, and for the only woman in the case, the chief of staff, has proposed six years and eight months. In addition, he is seeking the dissolution of the entire association and a fine of one hundred thousand crowns for the chairman and one of the sympathisers.
According to the indictment, members of the group supported and promoted terrorist activity for the benefit of an organised group. Two of them, Orthodox priest Přemysl Hadrava and Vladimír Štádler, were also alleged to have contributed to financing terrorism and to have possessed illegal weapons. Police allegedly found child pornography on a computer disk belonging to chairman Ivan Kratochvíl.
According to prosecutors, in the seventeenth year one of the members, Miloš Ouřecký, travelled to eastern Ukraine. He was allegedly to join armed militants fighting against the Kyiv government to gain military experience. Upon returning home, he was supposed to pass on these skills to other members of the association. Ouřecký confessed to everything in March; a separate panel imposed a suspended sentence of three years and work in the public interest.
The group also transferred a sum of twelve thousand crowns to eastern Ukraine. These funds were received by Petr Botka, a man born in Czechia, who joined separatist units. German justice sentenced Botka in absentia in 2022 to a twenty-year sentence.
The defence and the defendants argue that the money was not intended for armed militants, but as a humanitarian gift to the injured Botka for treatment following the amputation of his leg caused by stepping on a mine. They emphasise that the transfer took place three years before Botka's conviction and that they did not have detailed information about his activities.
Kratochvíl's lawyer Dan Dvořáček told the court that his client had nothing to do with Ouřecký's journey to Ukraine. "My client flew to Russia with him, then did not contact him further. Mr Ouřecký himself said that the final decision came only at the recruitment centre on the Donbas," he explained. He described the proposed sanctions as disproportionately harsh.
Priest Hadrava said in his address to the court that the entire proceedings are politicised and commissioned. The verdict is to be delivered on twenty-seventh July.
Source: Novinky.cz
Source: Novinky.cz