Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe Indicted for Manslaughter in the Czech Republic

MOSCOW -- Randy Blythe, the front man of the U.S. heavy metal band Lamb of God, intends to “fight vigorously” against the recent indictment on manslaughter charges in the Czech Republic and will come to Prague to defend himself at the trial.

A Prague court has indicted Blythe for manslaughter following an incident at the band’s Prague show in May 2010 when a fan climbed onstage and Blythe allegedly pushed him back into the audience. The fan fell down, suffering head injuries and died soon afterwards in hospital.

Blythe was detained last June at Prague’s Ruzyne airport when the Richmond, Virginia based band arrived to play a show in the Czech capital. He spent several weeks in a Czech jail before being released on an 8 million Czech crown ($431,000) bond last August. The musician immediately flew to the United States but promised to return to Prague for a trial.

“Obviously, we intend to fight vigorously against these charges as we feel that in no way did Randy intend to cause bodily harm on the young fan who subsequently died from injuries sustained at the show,” the band’s manager Larry Mazer said in a statement issued on Dec. 3, also confirming that Blythe intends to go to Prague to attend his trial.

“We believe that Randy responded professionally to the numerous amount of fans rushing the stage that day, a number of them captured on videos that have been posted on the Internet,” the statement said.

Amateur videos shot at the 2010 show and uploaded to YouTube feature several fans climbing onstage but it isn’t clear if the fatal incident was captured.

A date for Blythe’s trial is yet to be set.