The Czech Republic has been left in shock after a 19-year-old planted a bomb in a school, murdered an innocent person with an axe then took his own life.
On Friday at around 2.30pm students at a chemistry school in Pardubice discovered a sports bag containing a homemade bomb, which was eventually disassembled with the help of a robot.
Policejní pyrotechnici jdou provádět bližší ohledání nalezeného předmětu. #policiepak pic.twitter.com/5L9TX2UpC2
— Policie ČR (@PolicieCZ) November 4, 2022
That evening police identified a possible suspect, a 19-year-old student, with police spokesperson Markéta Janovská announcing they were taking "all possible available steps" to determine his location and apprehend him.
However, on Saturday, a murder took place in Vysoké Mýto.
An innocent bystander was attacked with an axe and killed, seemingly completely at random.
The attacker is believed to have been the 19-year-old suspect, who was detained by police with the help of a witness who chased him, according to Czech outlet Blesk.
When he was detained Paradubice Zive reports that the man told police he had wanted to "take revenge" and kill more people, as well as confirming the victim of the fatal axe attack was chosen at random.
Having been apprehended the suspect began vomiting and told the police he'd swallowed poison. Emergency services took the young man to hospital, where he died. He was later identified as the suspect in the attempted bombing.
Police spokesperson Janovská said: "As part of the search of the home and other premises where the suspect was moving, we found additional objects, components and chemicals for possible assembly of explosive devices.
"It must be said that these were commonly available things that can be bought freely."
It's believed the suspect acted alone, but detectives cannot rule out accomplices.
Jan Ptáček, Regional Director of the Pardubice Police, said: "At this time, according to all the information available to us, there is no risk in connection with the suspect, but I must mention that due to the seized objects, it cannot be ruled out that the suspect planned to carry out an attack with much more serious consequences in the near future at a place with a larger concentration of people, which is one of the main investigative leads."
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