Two Poles charged with terror offences over arson attack on Czech defence firm with links to Israel

Apr 2, 2026 | Defence, Law

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The authorities in Poland have detained and charged two Polish citizens for their role in an arson attack last month on a facility in the Czech Republic belonging to a defence firm linked to Israel.

The pair, both aged in their early 20s, are accused of helping facilitate a “terrorist act” by an “extremist group” whose aim is to prevent cooperation with the Israeli defence industry. If convicted, the suspects could face up to 15 years in prison.

The incident in question took place on 20 March in the Czech city of Pardubice, where a fire broke out at a facility belonging to LPP Holding, a Czech defence firm that specialises in drones.

Afterwards, a group called Earthquake Faction, which describes itself as “an international underground network that targets key sites critical to the Zionist entity”, claimed responsibility for the attack.

It said it had targeted the facility because it is the “epicentre of the Israeli weapons industry in Europe” due to LPP Holdings’ cooperation with Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems. They are “develop[ing] weaponry used by the Zionist entity to massacre people daily in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and across West Asia”.

In 2023, LPP signed an agreement with Elbit to cooperate in the development of drones, including establishing a joint production and training centre in the Czech Republic. However, last month, after the arson attack, LPP said that the agreement had never been implemented.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said in the wake of the incident that they were investigating it as a terrorist act. By the end of March, Czech police confirmed that five suspects, one of them a US national, had been detained, reported Radio Prague.

On Thursday morning, Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) and National Prosecutor’s Office announced that they had detained and charged two Polish citizens – named only as Aleksandra Ż., aged 23, and Filip B., 22, under Polish privacy law – in relation to the attack.

Both were arrested in Warsaw in the week following the attack, said Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for Poland’s security services. A court has now approved a request from prosecutors to place them in three months of pretrial detention.

The pair have been charged with facilitating an act of a terrorist nature that caused a large-scale threat to property. Prosecutors say that their aim was “to intimidate many people and force the Czech authorities to refrain from certain actions”. The suspects have pleaded not guilty.

 

In a separate incident last September, two pro-Palestinian protesters were detained by police in Poland after throwing a red liquid over the stand of Elbit Systems at Poland’s biggest arms fair in the city of Kielce.

Shortly afterwards, prosecutors announced that the pair – Radomir M., aged 25, and Aleksandra S., 20 – had been charged with damaging the property of the firm that organises the fair. However, they noted that Elbit had decided not to seek charges for the damage of its property.

Elbit is Israel’s largest military manufacturer and a major supplier of equipment to the Israeli Defence Force. The firm’s participation at the fair in Poland had drawn local protests due to the use of its weaponry by Israel in Gaza.

Its drones were, for example, used in the strike in April 2024 on a humanitarian convoy that killed seven people, including Polish aid worker Damian Soból.

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Policie ČR/X

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