Report: Czech youths watch president through rifle telescope

Jun 23, 2010, 14:27 GMT

Prague - Two Czech teenagers were briefly arrested after watching President Vaclav Klaus from a rooftop with an air rifle telescope, Mlada Fronta Dnes daily reported Wednesday.

The two 19-year-olds used the telescope of an air rifle to observe the president visiting their home city of Olomouc last week.

One of them detached the telescope to watch Klaus, the report said, while the other played around with the air gun, aiming it at objects around about.

The president's bodyguards noticed the teenagers, who got scared and hid in an apartment. Police arrested them minutes later, the report said.

'We did not realize at all that it could have gotten us in trouble. We didn't think that someone would see us,' the report cited one of the youths as saying.

The teenagers, who could have been mistaken for assassins and shot, are likely to get away without punishment. Police are treating the incident as a misdemeanour, the report said.

'I know we were really lucky,' one of the young men told the newspaper.