Prince Charles' floral assailent to run for EP

  • 2009-03-27
  • TBT staff in cooperation with BNS

The famed image of Lebedeva striking Prince Charles with a red carnation.

RIGA 's Alina Lebedeva, whose fame came from her notorious floral attackon Prince Charles in 2001, is now the second person on the list of candidatesto the European Parliament.  

The representatives of the obscure ForMotherland said that there were 11 candidate MEPs on their list and AlinaLebedeva was second after the party leader Jurijs Zuravlovs.

At the time of the attack, Lebedeva was 16 years old and said she hadintended to slap the prince with flowers as a protest against war in Afghanistanin which the UK was also involved. The incident happened during the prince'spublic appearance in Riga as he was accepting flowers from children.

After the incident, the Latvian Security opened a criminal case againstLebedeva for endangering the health and life of a foreign dignitary that could gether up to 15 years in jail but later the charges were downgraded to hooliganismand then dropped altogether at the request by Prince Charles.

Later, Lebedeva joined the local supporters of the Russian extremists,National Bolsheviks, who have been outlawed in Latvia for their radical viewsand unconventional forms of protest.

In December 2004 she was among the crowd thatstormed the offices of the Russian president's administration and spent twoyears in prison for the crime.