Court sentences Jiří Junek to 21 years in prison for setting partner alight in Prague
Prague City Court has imposed an exceptional sentence of 21 years imprisonment and ordered subsequent preventive detention on twenty-four-year-old Jiří Junek for setting his girlfriend alight and other violent offences.
Exceptional sentence for setting girlfriend alight: court sends Junek away for 21 years
Google News CZ — Crime (cs) reports that Prague City Court today handed down an exceptional sentence of 21 years imprisonment and ordered subsequent preventive detention for twenty-four-year-old Jiří Junek. He admitted that after several months of abuse, he doused his nineteen-year-old girlfriend in petrol and set her alight in a Prague apartment using a makeshift flamethrower made from a lighter and spray can.
The non-final judgment also found Junek guilty of animal abuse, rape, dangerous threats and administering drugs to a minor girl. Both the expert witness and the court unanimously established that rehabilitation of the young man with sadistic tendencies is nearly impossible.
"The court found no mitigating circumstances in the defendant save for partial confession," said judge Pavla Hájková, chair of the panel. She cited the multiplicity of offences, previous conviction for animal cruelty and exploitation of victims' dependence and subordination as aggravating factors.
Why an exceptional sentence was imposed
Attempted murder with torture usually carries a sentence of 15 to 20 years. An exceptional sentence of 20 to 30 years may be imposed if the crime is extraordinarily serious or if rehabilitation of the perpetrator is particularly difficult. Hájková established that both conditions were met in Junek's case. She did not impose a higher sentence within the exceptional range taking into account the defendant's young age.
Judge Hájková justified the preventive detention on the grounds that institutional treatment alone would not adequately protect society. Expert witnesses described Junek's freedom of movement as highly dangerous. "Medicine has nothing more to offer for this defendant," Hájková stated, noting that Junek had been under psychiatric care since childhood and no treatment had affected his mixed personality disorder.
The course of the attack and preceding abuse
The unemployed trained shop assistant receiving an invalidity pension explained his actions as being under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He set his girlfriend alight last April after suspecting her of infidelity. The girl extinguished the flames by rolling on the ground — Junek did not help her. She suffered second and third-degree burns covering 16 per cent of her body, affecting her face, neck, chest, back and hands. Junek only called for medical help the following day, citing his own minor burns to his hand.
The young woman will bear permanent consequences: lifelong scars and restricted mobility in her hands and neck. Before the attack itself, Junek beat his girlfriend daily for several months—with his fists and a telescopic baton—and verbally humiliated her over trifles. He cut her long hair, forced her to kill her pet and demanded access to her phone and computer. Two months before setting her alight, he spiked his girlfriend's sixteen-year-old sister's juice with liquid ecstasy without her knowledge.
Other victims and compensation
The judgment describes Junek's previous relationship violence. He repeatedly humiliated another young girlfriend, forced sexual intercourse or engaged in it while she was asleep, and tortured rats in her parents' house. After the girl's father threw him out after a year and a half, he forced her to have sexual relations and make payments under threat of publishing intimate photographs and causing physical harm.
The court ordered Junek to pay his burned girlfriend 2.5 million crowns in compensation for non-pecuniary damage, another abused former girlfriend 600,000 crowns and the drugged minor 20,000 crowns. He is to repay the health insurance provider 318,000 crowns and the Ministry of Justice, which provided monetary assistance to victims, 92,000 crowns.
After the judgment was announced, Junek, the state prosecutor and the representative of the injured girls all reserved the right to appeal to the appellate court. The judgment is therefore not yet final.
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)