Czech Defense Minister orders dismissal of soldier linked to neo-Nazis

Lukáš Sedláček, a career member of the Czech military who is said to have co-founded the neo-Nazi organization White Justice, will be dismissed from the Czech Army. Czech Defense Minister Martin Barták made the announcement yesterday.

“I am familiar with this particular case. I personally gave the order to initiate the necessary steps to immediately end his service,” Barták wrote in a statement released to ČTK. The Minister considers the matter to be very serious. “Because of similar excesses, we have been advocating for an amendment to the law on career military which will facilitate appropriate recourse in cases of extremism in the Army, whether right-wing or left-wing,” he said.

Yesterday’s Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) reported that the extremist organization White Justice has been preparing terrorist attacks and planning the abductions of police officers and “highly placed Jews”. At training camps their members have learned how to destroy property, set cars on fire and fight both with weapons and without them. Training and communications took place in strict secrecy. MfD reports its sources are a secret neo-Nazi website and the testimonies of the founding members of White Justice, Filip Stránský and the soldier Sedláček.

MfD reports that Stránský is evidently the head of the whole organization or is at least considered to be the head by several of its members. He denies a leading role. The organization arranged a total of four training camps (so-called “fight camps”) at which Sedláček taught those interested the basics of attacking specific people or buildings.

“I am one of the founders of this organization. It was founded by me, Filip Stránský and a person by the name of Jana,” Sedláček told police. MfD has reviewed the transcripts of his interrogation. The professional soldier from the Tábor subdivision confessed to having trained about 30 people in hand-to-hand combat, with weapons and without them, and in attacks on both living and inanimate targets. He also trained them in techniques for setting cars on fire and destroying other property.