Czech president ends probe of soldiers over Afghanistan torture claim

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The Czech Republic has dropped criminal investigations against four soldiers in connection with serious allegations of torture of an Afghan man during a mission in Afghanistan in a move ordered by President Petr Pavel.

By closing the investigations, Pavel - himself a former NATO general - was making use of a constitutional provision, the presidential office said in Prague on Wednesday.

The president had acted in response to the defendants' pleas for clemency, it added in a statement.

The Czech Republic was involved in the NATO mission in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2021.

The allegations date back to 2018, when an Afghan man shot and killed a Czech soldier at a military base and seriously injured two others.

After his arrest, he was interrogated by four members of a Czech special unit and by US soldiers, according to the CTK news agency.

Shortly afterwards, he was taken to a field hospital, where he died.

The Czech public prosecutor's office filed charges against the four military personnel in April. It accused two of them of coercion and insubordination and two others of failure to render assistance and neglect of their duties as soldiers.

A spokesman for the president justified the decision, citing among other things the "exceptional nature of the war situation," the "difficult international context" and the length of the investigation.