Appeal court examines murder of Kutná Hora sect leader, both women face over ten years
Prague High Court is hearing an appeal in the case of the death of the leader of a Kutná Hora sect. A dentist and a pensioner face 12 and 13 years in prison.
High Court in Prague hears case of death of Kutná Hora sect leader
Prague High Court today hears an appeal in the case of the death of a fifty-year-old leader of a Kutná Hora sect. According to ceskenoviny.cz, the two accused women — a pensioner and a dentist — were sentenced by the court of first instance to 13 and 12 years in prison respectively for premeditated murder.
Both women admit to the act, but insist they were fulfilling the man's wish to die. Their defence lawyers argue he was not of sound mind: the self-proclaimed healer allegedly transferred his own psychological delusions to the accused.
The death occurred in October 2022 in the pensioner's Prague flat. The man voluntarily ingested medication with calming and hypnotic effects. The dentist — also his partner — then cut him with a scalpel on the groin and wrist and administered an anaesthetic to him. It was acute poisoning from this substance that caused his death. After his death, the women waited for the body to disappear on its own, as the man had promised them before he died. When this did not happen, they went together to report the case to police.
Prague City Court concluded that the healer acted manipulatively and rationally and did not suffer from any delusions — he therefore could not have transferred them to the accused. During the main hearing, the dentist gave an emotional statement about long-term physical and psychological abuse and rape by the sect leader. Court experts diagnosed her with battered woman syndrome. The court took into account the proven abuse and her previous clean record and imposed a sentence at the lower limit of the statutory range. The provisional judgment also includes a four-year ban on practising in healthcare and mandatory psychiatric treatment.
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)