Plzen, West Bohemia, Aug 4 (CTK) – The Plzen Regional court has not released yesterday’s verdict on a complaint a Czech man lodged against being taken into custody over his suspected plan to join IS, but lawyers addressed by CTK said his release is improbable and the man has not been released by 16:00.
The Regional Court must first convey the verdict to the state attorney’s office, the accused man and his defence lawyer, its spokesman David Ungr told CTK.
The man, who is the first Czech suspected of planning to join IS, faces the charges of an attempted terrorist attack. He faces up to 15 years in prison, if found guilty.
If the court upheld the man’s custody regime yesterday, he will remain in the custody prison in Plzen.
If the court lifted the custody, it would have ordered the man’s immediate release from prison.
In similar cases, prison inmates are released by 16:00 on the day of the court verdict.
The suspected terrorist did not leave the Plzen prison by 16:00.
“I cannot comment on the issue. An accused person is involved and the presumption of innocence must be respected,” the prison’s spokeswoman Jana Bartosova said.
Ungr said information about the case will be provided by the lower-level court that ordered the suspect’s custody stay on July 20.
The suspect’s defence lawyer declined to comment on the issue.
According to dailies Pravo and Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD), the first Czech to be detained over a plan to become an IS fighter is a 21-year-old man from Spalene Porici, a west Bohemian town with 2,500 inhabitants.
He was a lonely inconspicuous young man who liked to play computer games. A mechanician by profession, he works in a firm in his hometown where he lives together with his mother and sister, the dailies wrote.
The police arrested him about two weeks ago when he was returning from the night work shift.
According to the latest issue of weekly Respekt, the man was detained at an international airport in Turkey in January. He had an air ticket for a domestic flight to the Syrian border.
He reportedly confessed to the Turkish police that was planning to join IS in Syria, Respekt wrote.
The Turks returned the man to the Czech Republic and informed their Czech counterparts about the case.
