Court definitively acquits bodyguard of MEP Turk. Official remained bedridden after assault
The Plzeň Regional Court upheld an acquittal judgment for Pavel Plešince, former bodyguard of MEP Filip Turk. The man was accused of causing serious bodily harm to a seventy-year-old official.
Court definitively acquits bodyguard of MEP Turk. Official remained bedridden after assault
The Plzeň Regional Court on Tuesday definitively acquitted a forty-five-year-old man who protected MEP Filip Turk. The former martial arts competitor faced charges that he brutally assaulted an elderly official in Bor on the Tachovsko region last January. The victim remained permanently bedridden following the incident and is unable to move or speak.
Václav Říha, who headed the local building authority, was returning home from work on that fateful day. Someone attacked him, struck him in the torso area and the senior fell. During the fall he hit his head against the kerb of the pavement. He remained lying helpless on the ground.
Paramedics transported him to hospital in critical condition. He spent several weeks there unconscious. When he regained consciousness, doctors found he had sustained serious injuries. To this day he requires continuous care and is not self-sufficient. His relatives sought compensation from the alleged perpetrator in the amount of seventeen million crowns.
Police accused Pavel Plešince. However, the district court in Tachov acquitted him last November. According to the judgment, it was not possible to prove beyond doubt that he had committed the assault. The regional court has now confirmed this conclusion.
"It was only established that the accused was in the Tachov area at the given time and could theoretically have been in Bor," said panel chairman Miloslav Sedláček. A key argument was the absence of any odour or genetic trace on the victim's body that would have incriminated Plešince. "The attacker handled the body on the ground, yet it was not possible to obtain any trace from the victim's body corresponding to the accused. This speaks strongly in his favour," explained the judge.
The court also found no motive. "It is not established that the assault was connected with the victim's work or with any personal disputes. That someone would have wanted to influence him, intimidate him or take revenge on him," added Sedláček.
The accused denied guilt from the very beginning. He testified in court that that day he drove by car to a friend in the Stříbra area. "I spent about thirty minutes there and then I returned to Plzeň. I do not know Mr Říha, and I do not know Bor. Perhaps I drove through there on a bicycle at some point," he said. He described himself as someone who gets along with everyone and has no enemies. He devoted his sporting career to martial arts over the course of two decades.
Source: Novinky.cz