Czech Police charge man with attack on NGO that organized donations for refugees

Police in the Czech town of Pardubice have charged a 22-year-old man on suspicion of committing an attack in April 2016 on the Kašpárek Family Center by pouring paint on the doors and wall of the center and pasting a fictional obituary of center director Olga Pavlů on the front window. The man is charged with committing property damage and threatening danger.

If convicted, he will face up to one year in prison. Eva Maturová, spokesperson for the Pardubice Police, informed the Czech News Agency of the charges on 7 November 2016.

The management of the center associated the incident with the fact that it had launched a collection of donations for refugees. Police originally postponed investigating the case because they could not manage to track down the perpetrator.

Later, however, detectives collaborating with colleagues in Prague discovered new facts that revealed the suspect’s identity. “The man has confessed to the crime. He has not said what motivated his behavior,” the police spokesperson said.

A church in the center of Pardubice was also splashed with paint this spring, but the man who confessed to the Family Center vandalism denied participating in the church incident. The fabricated obituary on the Kašpárek Family Center stated that “the left-wing extremist, multiculturalist, wife and mother of a 16-year-old son Olga Pavlů has left us forever. She died in prison in Pardubice after being sentenced to death by hanging for the especially serious crime of treason.”

The “death date” on the obituary was listed as 2021. Pavlů previously said the April incident was the fourth since the end of last year, when the center began organizing the collection of donations for refugees, and that previous attacks were limited to plastering the door with hateful stickers inscribed with, for example, “Death to traitors” or “Refugees not welcome”.