The incident occurred on June 22, 2024 in front of a panel house in the village on the border of the Ústí and Karlovy Vary regions. According to the indictment, Lakatoš physically attacked the victim and a fight broke out.
He then caught his head in the so-called tie and jerked. With a sudden movement, he fractured his cervical vertebra. The subsequent swelling of the spinal cord and brain led to the victim’s death.
But the defendant claims that he punched the thirty-three-year-old partner only twice in the head. According to him, the fatal injury should have occurred only after the victim fell to the ground, during subsequent lay or professional resuscitation or during transport to the hospital.
However, his version of the story is contradicted by the conclusions of forensic experts, according to which the only reason for the victim’s death was a fracture of the cervical vertebra. And according to them, such an injury could not have occurred other than by a jerking of the head clenched in the tie.
Judge Roman Felzmann agreed with the experts’ statement, although he admitted that it is not clear from the testimony of the defendant and the witnesses what exactly preceded the fatal incident. “But it is certain that it was violence of considerable intensity,” noted the judge when justifying the sentence.
According to him, the defendant did not intend to kill the victim. “But he should have assumed that an attack on a vital organ could have fatal consequences. But the defendant did not count on that,” added the judge.
