Feud between diplomats led to fake plot to kill mayor, spy service says.
PRAGUE — A feud between two Russian diplomats was behind a hoax that prompted police to guard Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib and two other politicians from an alleged assassin armed with ricin, the Czech Intelligence Service (BIS) said Friday.
In a statement posted on its website, the BIS described the fictional assassination plot as “a simple and sad story of animosity and jealousy between two employees of the Russian embassy in Prague, which one of them decided to resolve with an anonymous e-mail sent to the BIS in an attempt to seriously harm his colleague.”
The BIS said Friday that the vast majority of information in the email was “verifiable, true and accurate.” As a result, Hřib and two Prague district mayors were immediately placed under police protection.
The case was first made public in mid-April by the Czech weekly Respekt. Citing “police and other responsible security services,” the magazine reported that a Russian national traveling on a diplomatic passport had flown into Prague in early April armed with the highly potent toxin ricin.
The reason cited for the threat against the three politicians was their alleged anti-Russian activities, including the renaming of a Prague square on which the Russian embassy was located after the assassinated opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and the removal of a statue commemorating Russian war hero Marshal Ivan Konev.
The agency said that, though the story was “hard to believe,” it could not “throw this kind of information in the trash” and risk the lives of those threatened. “Unfortunately, even murders are in the arsenal of Russian intelligence services,” the BIS noted.
The two diplomats were declared persona non grata and expelled from the country on June 7, a move that outraged the Russian government.
The Russian embassy in Prague called it a “fabricated provocation” and declared, “We are deeply disappointed by such an approach of our Czech partners that [is] leaving less and less space for constructive dialogue.”
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A feud between two Russian diplomats was behind a hoax that prompted police to guard Prague’s mayor and two other politicians from an alleged assassin armed with ricin https://t.co/CNodZoP7Qj
— POLITICO (@politico) June 14, 2020
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