Perpetrators: Lukeš confessed to being present during the attack. However he denied attempting to kill anyone and he also denied being an extremist. According to suspect Müller, Lukeš was the one who brought the whole idea of the attack to the members of the group. The public outcry which followed the attack had been accompanied by public condemnation from the President and Prime Minister, both of whom called for the perpetrators to be sought and convicted: this was totally unexpected by Lukeš. Lukeš became very frightened and nervous. Lukeš, who suffers from a slight speech disorder, remained silent for the most of the trial. In his final speech, he said that he felt himself to be a victim of a political trial. He has never shown regret for the arson attack, nor apologized to the victims. Lukeš attorney Pavel Pěnkava asserted that his client was neither a neo-Nazi nor a co-author of the attack. He asked, without success, that Lukeš actions to be tried not as a racially motivated attempted multiple murder, but as an offence under the bodily harm provision of the Criminal Code. This, following a conviction, would have reduced the available punishments to a prison term of 3-10 years of imprisonment. That would have been a much milder range of sentences than that available for the crimes alleged by the prosecution, and under which the court did convict Lukeš