Third Czech charged with endangering public in methanol case

The man distributed the lethal alcoholic mixture prepared in Opava, north Moravia.

A number of people got poisoned by bootleg alcohol in the Czech Republic in the past month. Twenty-eight of those poisoned have died.

If the suspect is convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison or even a tougher exceptional sentence, Kafka said.

"The accused man took over ten tonnes of the prepared mixture from another man, who was accused previously, and he distributed it to further recipients," Kafka said.

The man was originally charged with endangering people´s health by bad food out of negligence, a less serious crime that carries a punishment of up to eight years in jail. The police have re-qualified his suspected crime now.

In the past weeks, the police accused other two men of intentionally endangering the public´s safety.

They are a 42-year-old entrepreneur running a catering business in Karvina, north Moravia, and a 37-year-old executive of Carlogic, a firm seated in Ritka near Prague that produces car cosmetics.

The police say the two are the main persons behind the fatal methanol affair. They have been taken into custody, as has been the third suspect from Zlin.

The police say the suspects did not want to kill anybody, but they wanted to earn money by producing illegal liquors. However, they knew well what consequences the consumption of methanol (methyl alcohol) has, Kafka said.

They wanted to profit from buying cheaper components for liquor production. When mixing components together, however, they prepared a mixture with an excessive methanol concentration that eventually poisoned consumers.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz