Zlin, South Moravia/Bratislava, Nov 18 (CTK) – The High Court in Olomouc, north Moravia, recently upheld a 14-month prison sentence for French citizen Christophe Etienne Dubroeucq for illegal transport of arms from Slovakia to the Czech Republic, Simona Tesarova told CTK Wednesday.
The 14-month sentence was first imposed on Dubroeucq by the Zlin court, but he appealed it.
Dubroeucq was also expelled for five years from the Czech Republic.
Dubroeucq´s accomplice Jeremy Pierre Andre Onoo was given a year-long suspended sentence with three-year probation and he was also expelled from the Czech Republic for five years, Tesarova said.
She said the two French nationals were convicted of illegal possession of arms and foreign trade in military materiel. They faced up to eight years in prison for the crimes.
Earlier yesterday, the case was highlighted by the Czech server Lidovky.cz.
Lidovky.cz wrote that the Czech ech police arrested two men with French documents and a car full of weapons on the Czech-Slovak border in April, three months after the terrorist attack on the Paris seat of the Charlie Hebdo magazine.
The Czech Republic might have been a state via which weapons were transported to be used in the November 15 terrorist attacks in Paris, the server added.
A police patrol stopped the car with weapons near the border crossing in Stary Hrozenkov, east Moravia. They detained two men and criminal proceedings were launched against them.
The police then reported the case to the Czech National Contact Point for Terrorism, which falls under the police organised crime squad (UOOZ).
UOOZ spokesman Pavel Hantak told Lidovky.cz that the suspects were caught transporting devalued expansion weapons bought in Slovakia. Such weapons are supposed to be adjusted for shooting with blank bullets only.
However, automatic rifles that can be easily adjusted to kill are also on sale in Slovakia, the server wrote.
The police said Dubroeucq asked Onoo in early April to accompany him from France to Slovakia in order to buy weapons. Onoo was supposed to provide and drive a car as Dubroeucq was unable to drive at a long distance for health reasons.
They left France on April 15. One day later, Dubroeucq bought weapons in Slovakia.
Tesarova said the weapons were seven pieces of expansion acoustic weapons and three UZI automatic rifles with empty magazines.
Dubroeucq transported the weapons across the border to the Czech Republic at 13:20 on the same day, though he did not have the Industry and Trade Ministry´s permit for transporting weapons across the EU, nor did he have a licence that would authorise him to posses firearms of A category, i.e. banned firearms, Tesarova said.
The Zlin court imposed the verdicts on Dubroeucq and Onoo without media attention in July.
Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak told journalists on Wednesday that expansion weapons were exported from the country to Western Europe in the past.
Last spring, the conditions of sales as well exports were tightened. The measures include the ban on e-purchases, Kalinak said.
He said interest in the exports of the above weapons has decreased since the law was tightened.
Kalinak said the previous information that the weapons the terrorists used in France in January came from Slovakia was not confirmed.
Slovakia has also been asked to help identify the weapons the terrorists used in Paris last week. Prime Minister Robert Fico said, however, there are no sings indicating that the weapons came from Slovakia.
