Under police protection, Prague district mayor says Russia’s FSB tried to assassinate him

The mayor of Prague, Zdenek Hrib, has confirmed he is under police protection for more than two weeks. The announcement comes days after a news report suggested he was the target of a Russian assassination plot.

“First of all I should say that it is very important for me to stand by my belief although it means a risk for my life. The police protection was simply given to me by the Czech police. By their decision, I am not able to comment on the reasons”, Hrib said in an interview with Russia’s independent Echo of Moscow radio station.

Last week, Czech media reported he had been placed under “temporary police protection” after concerns he was being followed near his home.

On Sunday, a Czech weekly magazine, citing Czech intelligence sources, reported that a person carrying Russian diplomatic papers had arrived in Prague three weeks ago with the objective of assassinating Hrib and another Czech politician, Ondrej Kolar. He reportedly had been carrying a suitcase containing the lethal poison ricin.

The Russian embassy rejected the allegation, saying the report had “absolutely no basis”. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, dismissed the report as fake.

Relations between Prague and Moscow have soured when Hrib recently backed a decision to rename the square outside the Russian embassy to that of a murdered Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov. Prague also angered Moscow by removing the statue of Russian WWII military hero Marshal Ivan Konev.

Kolar backed the removal of the Konev statue. He later told Czech media that he was under protection because “there is a Russian here who has been given the task of liquidating me”, as well as Mr Hrib and a third politician, Pavel Novotny. In 2019, he said he had been forced to leave Prague after receiving threats by email, social media and text message.