Slovak media have video footage of brutal attack that killed Filipino, suspect is in custody
The assailant Juraj H. of Dunajská Streda, who harrassed women in the center of Bratislava and then kicked to death their colleague who came to their defense, Filipino citizen Henry Acorda, has been remanded into custody. A judge has made that decision following a motion by the prosecutor.
Before leaving the courtroom, Juraj H. expressed regret for his actions. “The Bratislava I District Court decided to remand the accused into custody for preventive reasons, which means there are grounds to be concerned that he might continue his criminal activity,” said the spokesperson for the Bratislava Regional Court, Pavol Adamčiak.
Should his guilt be proven, Juraj H. faces a prison sentence of between seven and 12 years. He was escorted to the court by police.
“I did not want to do this, I will reproach myself for it for the rest of my life,” news server sme.sk reported the brutal assailant as telling the court before being escorted from the courtroom by police. The 36-year-old Filipino had lived and worked in Slovakia for several years and died as a consequence of his injuries last week, five days after the attack.
Media outlets have acquired video footage from security cameras that captures the attack. The footage shows the assailant approaching the foreigner, who backs away from the assailant, who is a head taller than he is.
The assailant strikes the victim on the face, bringing him to his knees, at which point the assailant brutally kicks the victim in the head. The victim’s head then strikes the pavement.
That was not enough for the assailant, who then kicked the victim directly in the head. The victim then remained motionless on the ground.
The assailant then took a photograph of the immobilized body of the victim and put his foot on him. Although the suspect was apprehended shortly after the attack, the prosecutor saw no reason at that time to propose he be remanded into custody.
That decision was reversed after the media and politicians began to take an interest in the case. The Prosecutor-General has criticized politicians who have alleged, among other things, that the prosecutor did not initially proceed correctly in the case.
“It is sad that these reactions of theirs are coming one week later and are rather reminiscent of a ‘race’ to see who can be the first to exploit this subject to the greatest degree,” Prosecutor-General Jaromír Čižnár wrote in his statement. “They could instead be urging the competent authorities to adopt the requisite measures to eliminate the violence in the center of the capital that is generally known to have been happening for a long time.”
Čižnár said Slovak Justice Minister Gábor Gál, who said he wanted to get involved with the case of the death of the Filipino man, has been sent the message that he has no influence over the activity of the Office of the Prosecutor, calling his statement just a lot of strong language. The Prosecutor-General has also begun investigating the prosecutor’s initial decision not to propose remanding the suspect into custody.
In the past the Prosecutor-General has investigated how various lower-level prosecutors or police have proceeded during investigations. For example, the office has found mistakes in the work of the police and prosecutors in several cases about the firms and individuals about whom the recently-murdered jounralist Ján Kuciak was writing at the time of his death.
