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Police reviewing CCTV footage of attack in Opava

22 October 2012
2 minute read

The investigation of the recent Molotov cocktail attack in Opava is continuing. Sona Stetinska, spokesperson for the Regional Police in Ostrava, says police officers are intensively evaluating video footage from CCTV cameras on the street.

Two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the apartment building in Rybarska street in the early morning hours of Saturday. No one suffered any physical injuries, but for the time being no one is investigating the pscyhological trauma the attack has caused the victims. No material damages were caused by the attack.

Detectives in Opava are continuing to investigate, but the Regional Police have taken over reporting on the case. “The detectives are working on several versions of a possible motive. We can neither confirm nor deny whether the crime was committed randomly, whether a personal motive was at play, or whether it was racially motivated – even though the information so far does not indicate racial motivation, it also cannot be ruled out at this time,” Stetinska said, adding that detectives in Opava have not yet received the results of the expert chemical analysis of the contents of the bottles.

The police spokesperson said investigators have already contacted dozens of people who might have information about the case. Most of those interviewed were residents of the building where the bottles were found, but their neighbors have also been interviewed. Detectives are determining who got the bottles into the hallway and how.

As Romea.cz previously reported, someone threw Molotov cocktails into this same building at the end of June 2008. An unidentified perpetrator threw two Molotov cocktails into the entryway of the building, setting fire to the door of a ground-floor apartment. Fortunately, tenants managed to put out the blaze. Police never found the perpetrator. Soon after the attack, two assailants attempted to attack a pregnant woman who lived in the building in front of the entrance, but she managed to escape with the aid of one of her relatives.

At the same time in Sadova street, which is right next to Rybarska street, local hooligans returning from a match threw a tear gas grenade into a building near the stadium. As a tenant of the building told Romea.cz, “The children had difficulty breathing, we had to move away for a few days, we had to clean up the apartment at our own expense, including painting all the rooms. Recently local thugs threw a big rock at our window.” Police never found the perpetrators of any of these attacks.

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