Youssef Moursi, a 25-year-old Egyptian university student and activist in Prague, has spent the last six months in pre-trial detention. He is accused of an arson attack in March on a Czech weapons factory that has alleged ties to Israel. Moursi denies any involvement.
He is one of 11 people charged with terrorism over the attack. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison. The case has drawn comparisons with legal battles in the United Kingdom and Germany, where other pro-Palestine activists have faced terrorism-related proceedings.
Conditions in custody and claims of pressure
Moursi, a humanities student at Charles University, said in a statement that a group of armed and masked police officers broke down his front door two days after the alleged attack. According to his lawyer, he spent the first three months of his detention in solitary confinement. He is now allowed one hour outside his cell and 20 minutes on the phone each day, and he receives visits from friends and family every two weeks.
Moursi described the treatment as a deliberate campaign. He said police were trying to break activists by isolating some of them for months, denying visits, blocking correspondence and spreading fear. He argued that holding people for long periods without direct evidence, based on what he called a mix of inclinations, activism and racism, was unacceptable.
Evidence cited by police and the defence response
Moursi and his lawyer, Pavel Cizinsky, believe he has been targeted because of his involvement in pro-Palestine activism in Prague. Cizinsky said part of the case against Moursi rests on a social media post he made the day after the fire. In it, he shared advice for pro-Palestinian activists on how to act if officers approached them. Cizinsky called the use of that post “ridiculous”, arguing that the same advice given to anyone else would not be treated as evidence of guilt.
Cizinsky also said that, at the start of the investigation, he faced pressure from the authorities not to take the case. As a result, he was not present for Moursi’s first interrogation or for the search of his flat. He said the police had devoted considerable resources to the case, but that holding Moursi for five months was in his view a breach of the law.
Under Czech law, people in pre-trial detention who have not been convicted must have their custody reviewed by a court every three months. Moursi’s detention has been reviewed twice so far, and on both occasions the court ruled that he must remain in prison. His next review is due in early December. The trial is expected to begin within a year.
The March fire at LPP Holding in Pardubice
The fire broke out in the early hours of March 20 at LPP Holding, a weapons factory in Pardubice, about 120 kilometres east of Prague. No one was injured. Police said the building was destroyed, and damage estimates reached hundreds of millions of crowns, or at least four million euros.
A previously unknown pro-Palestinian group, The Earthquake Faction, claimed responsibility and posted videos of the fire. The group said it had targeted LPP Holding because of its cooperation with Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons company. LPP Holding and Elbit Systems announced a partnership in 2023 to build drones in the Czech Republic. However, an LPP Holding spokesperson told Czech media on the day of the fire that the collaboration had never taken place.
In the weeks after the attack, police launched a manhunt and arrested several foreign nationals, including Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish and American citizens. Of the 10 other people accused, three are under house arrest in Poland and seven remain in custody in the Czech Republic. Police have confirmed that they have arrested and charged suspects of several nationalities and remanded them in custody.
A wider pattern of arrests and tension in Prague
Elbit Systems has become a main target for pro-Palestine activists across Europe over the past two years. In June, a UK court convicted four imprisoned Palestine Action members of criminal damage with a “terrorist connection” after a raid on an Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol. In September last year, police in Poland arrested protesters who threw red liquid over an Elbit Systems stand at an arms fair. An elderly man in Germany was also arrested after protesting against the Israeli weapons maker.
In Prague, the atmosphere for pro-Palestinian activists has become increasingly tense. A collective called Prague 4 Palestine Youth stopped organising demonstrations and charity events after police investigated dozens of its members in the months following the arson attack. Rue, a 25-year-old Czech activist who asked not to be named, said friends of those detained and fellow activists were facing interrogations, house searches and indefinite confiscation of their devices while the investigation continues.
Rue said that nine days after the fire, police interrogated them, took them back to their apartment for a search and kept them awake for more than 24 hours. Rue said they had panic attacks for a week afterwards. Rue was then told they were being treated as a witness. Their phone and computer were seized and have not been returned. Rue believes the scrutiny is linked to their friendship with suspects, and said they have visited two of them in prison, one of whom is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
According to the detainees’ lawyers, those held in the Czech Republic could remain in prison for up to four years without being convicted. Police, for their part, said that given the seriousness of the case and the ongoing investigation into terrorism-related offences, the supervising public prosecutor’s office has sole authority to release information.
