Czech authorities have charged a fifth suspect in connection with the March arson attack on a Pardubice weapons factory, as investigators pursue what they believe may be a Russian-directed operation disguised as a pro-Palestinian protest.
Fifth Suspect Charged With Terrorism
The Prague High Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on Monday that the Counter-Terrorism Police Unit had charged a fifth person over the arson at the LPP Holding facility in Pardubice, Ceske Noviny reports. The suspect, detained on Sunday, has been charged with a terrorist attack and participation in a terrorist group, offences carrying a sentence of up to 20 years in prison or an exceptional penalty.
Czech Interior Minister Lubomír Metnar disclosed the development during a visit to Slovakia. “There were many more perpetrators at the scene. We subsequently managed to detain others. Today, of the larger number of attackers at the scene, we have arrested five people,” he said at a joint press conference with his Slovak counterpart Matúš Šutaj Eštok.
High Prosecutor Zdeněk Štěpánek confirmed the detention in a statement, noting that criminal proceedings against the newly charged suspect were underway. The Pardubice District Court spokesperson, Karel Gobernac, said no further remand applications had been submitted by prosecutors at this stage.
Who Has Been Detained
Of the five suspects, three are held in custody in the Czech Republic. The first two arrested on Czech territory are a young Czech woman and a male foreign national. According to the Deník Referendum, citing the lawyer of one of the defendants, Pavel Čižinský, prosecutors currently hold only indirect evidence, and both defendants claim to have alibis for the time of the attack. The identities of the other two suspects charged on Czech territory have not yet been disclosed.
A fourth suspect, an American citizen, remains in preliminary detention in Slovakia. Metnar thanked Bratislava for her arrest. A Slovak court last week ordered her held pending extradition proceedings, and Slovak police are coordinating with the Office of International Police Cooperation to facilitate her transfer to Czech authorities. All three suspects held in the Czech Republic have filed complaints against their remand orders.
Russian False Flag Suspected
The fire broke out on March 20 at the LPP Holding industrial facility, destroying a production hall and seriously damaging an adjacent administrative building. The company manufactures, among other things, drones for Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Responsibility was claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself The Earthquake Faction, which framed the attack as a protest against the company’s alleged cooperation with Israel and threatened to release stolen technical documents unless LPP Holding renounced Israeli partnerships. The company has denied any cooperation with Israeli manufacturers.
Czech security services are working with the hypothesis that the pro-Palestinian framing serves as cover for a Russian-directed operation, a line of inquiry that Insight News Media examined in detail following the initial arrests. Czech daily Mlada Fronta Dnes, citing sources, reported that disrupting drone production for Ukraine was the likely real objective of the attack, with the anti-Israeli framing used as a decoy.
