The court is expected to issue a ruling in the case of the Libušín cottage fire

Vsetín - The District Court in Vsetín is expected to deliver a verdict today in the case of the fire at the Libušín cottage in Pustevny in the Beskids. According to the indictment, the tragedy was caused by Pavel Pryszcz from Karviná, who neglected the repair of chimney bodies in 2007. The prosecutor proposed a sentence of two to three years in prison for the defendant for general endangerment due to negligence, with a suspended sentence on a longer probation period, which could be up to five years. The man faces two to eight years in prison. The defendant refused to testify in court.

According to the indictment, Pryszcz was responsible for ensuring the repair of the emergency state of the chimneys. He allegedly assigned the work to two employees who were not professionally qualified, and they lined the chimney contrary to applicable regulations. Pryszcz, as the responsible person, did not detect and rectify the defects and issued a review report stating that the flue paths had no apparent defects. When the cottage was heated afterward, high flue gas temperatures damaged, according to the indictment, the beams between the chimney and the wall in the kitchen, which later led to the fire in the building.

In his statement from the preliminary proceedings, Pryszcz admitted that he indeed issued the review report, but he stated in the document that the installation was not made, which means that no appliances are connected. From the photographs after the fire, Pryszcz concluded that the fire likely ignited in the gutter section, not in the chimney. He deduces from this that subsequent inspections and cleanings of the chimneys were not properly conducted.

The Wallachian Museum in Nature in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, which manages Libušín, is claiming damages of over 112 million crowns, and the insurance company over 38 million crowns. The museum decided to restore the cottage after the fire, which had been a national cultural monument since 1995. Construction began in the summer of 2017 and is now practically complete, with the public expected to open it this summer.