Court acquitted woman who killed brother while protecting sister
After several years of legal proceedings, the Supreme Court ruled that a twenty-three-year-old woman from the Mělník district acted in necessary self-defence when she prevented her brother's attack on her sixteen-year-old sister in 2018.
Court acquitted woman who killed brother while protecting sister
The Supreme Court definitively concluded the case from 1 May 2018 from Dolany nad Vltavou. The twenty-three-year-old accused, who at the time caused the death of her nineteen-year-old brother, will not face punishment. The verdict confirmed that she acted in necessary self-defence.
On the fateful evening, the young woman went running at the cries of her sixteen-year-old sister. On the attic of the family home, she found her brother holding the younger girl beneath him and gripping a knife in his hand. She immediately attempted to intervene. After overturning the attacker onto his back, she engaged him in a struggle. According to her account, she seized the cold weapon and stabbed him several times. Of the thirteen wounds total to the neck area, one penetrated all the way to the spine. Medical assistance could no longer change anything.
Investigators initially classified the entire incident as a particularly grave crime of murder. The accused faced a sentence of up to eighteen years. However, the court released her from custody, which caused considerable commotion in the area. Details emerged only during the main trial.
The Prague Regional Court originally found that the defence was partly disproportionate and imposed a conditional sentence of three years' imprisonment. The accused appealed. The appellate court subsequently quashed the original decision on the grounds that it was a typical case of justified self-defence. The reason was the brother's repeated attacks – shortly before the fatal confrontation, he had pursued the sister with a knife into the basement rooms, and in an earlier incident, he had hospitalised another relative.
The prosecutor appealed to the Supreme Court, which however did not uphold the appeal. Experts concluded that the woman had reacted in shock caused by fear for her sister's life. After years of legal proceedings, the case that began as an investigation into a brutal family murder thus ended with the accused being acquitted.
Source: CNN Prima NEWS
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)