Czech police: Russian GRU was behind 2014 explosions at Vrbetice ammunition depot. Case postponed
Kyiv • UNN
A Czech police investigation confirmed that the 2014 Vrbetice military depot bombings were organized by agents of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, the same ones behind the Salisbury assassination attempt in the UK, but the case was shelved because the suspects cannot be prosecuted while on Russian territory.
A Czech police investigation has confirmed that Russian military intelligence agency GRU and agents, the same ones behind the Salisbury assassination attempt in Britain, were behind the 2014 Vrbětice military depot bombings, but the case has been postponed because the suspects cannot be prosecuted while on Russian territory, Radio Prague International reported on Monday, writes UNN.
Details
“Czech police have completed their investigation into the 2014 explosions of military warehouses in the village of Vrbětice. Criminalists have confirmed that the event, which killed two people and caused multi-billion dollar damage, was not an accident. Investigators proved that the organizer of the explosions of warehouses on Czech territory is military intelligence GRU rf and agents who also carried out the attempted assassination in Salisbury in the UK,” the report says.
At present, however, states the Czech National Center for Combating Organized Crime (NCOZ), "the case has been postponed because it is not possible to continue prosecuting the perpetrators.
In its conclusion, NCOZ found that Russian military intelligence was involved in the organization of the bombings and the deaths of Czech citizens, including the fact that this was not the only such action, but part of the implementation of a program of long-term subversion by Russian military intelligence in the European Union and Ukraine
Behind the bombing of military warehouses, the Czech investigators stated, "was a special group of military intelligence 29155, designed to conduct sabotage operations abroad, subordinate to the 161st GRU Special Forces Training Center". According to the report, "the perpetrators of the explosion were Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, who in the past also in Salisbury in the UK carried out an assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
As it was found out earlier, GRU agents infiltrated the ammunition depots using fake passports issued in other names.
The Czech police, however, as indicated, cannot bring charges against the GRU rf agents because they are on the territory of the Russian Federation. The said country, the press release said, does not cooperate with Czech law enforcement authorities and does not extradite suspects for criminal prosecution.
"The authorities of the Russian federation refused to comply with the Czech Republic's requests for international legal assistance on the grounds that the processing of the Czech request could harm the sovereignty, public order and important interests of the Russian federation and that it was impossible to obtain the necessary information held by the Russian military and intelligence services," Czech police said of their investigation.
