The verdict is not final, the plaintiff has set a deadline for filing an appeal, Gašpar was not in court on Wednesday. Both men died in the fire, and the woman lying nearby suffered injuries. Gaspar was facing 15 to 20 years in prison, or an exceptional sentence.
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He had previously denied guilt in court, but initially confessed to the police. “This is a situation where the accused himself confessed, even repeatedly, that he poured petrol on the dead and subsequently set them on fire. However, further evidence does not suggest this at all,” said the chairman of the criminal senate, Jiří Dufek.
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The defense was also requested by the public prosecutor Petr Matoušek due to a lack of evidence in court. According to firefighters’ expertise, there is no indication that the fire was started intentionally using gasoline or another flame retardant. “The opinion of the firefighters is in sharp contradiction with the original statement of the defendant. I cannot rule out that the fire could have been caused by negligent conduct.
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They should have wanted the money
According to the indictment, the perpetrators demanded that the homeless pay their debts. When they failed, they bought at least six liters of gasoline in plastic bottles at the gas station. In order to kill both alleged debtors, according to the indictment, they broke into the building of the former boiler room last April 7 around 3:00 am. According to the file, the sleeping men and the things around them were filled with petrol and set on fire, even though there was still a woman nearby, and then they fled.
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Forty-seven-year-old Gašpar apologized for today’s main trial, and is serving a sentence in Valdice for not paying alimony. However, during the main trial in August, he admitted in court that he went to the former boiler room in the Zachar housing estate and sometimes slept in it. But he refused to attack acquaintances.
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“I believe I did not commit the crime. I did not set them on fire. I was not there,” Gaspar said at the time.
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In the preparatory proceedings, however, Gašpar stated that the sleeping man in the building was spilled with petrol by his companion, whom he knew only by sight. During the detention session, he said he was under the influence of alcohol and powders at the time of the fire. A police officer from the Kroměříž district department testified in court today as a witness, stating that at the end of last April, Gašpar had confessed to him on business that he had set fire to the boiler room. “He said he set it on fire with petrol. He didn’t mention another person,” the policeman said. He also mentioned that Gašpar had told him that he had bought petrol at a petrol station in Kroměříž. According to the police officer, Gašpar was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs at that time. According to Matoušek, the spontaneous confession of the accused initiated the entire criminal proceedings.
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Intervening firefighters found two bodies of men without signs of life in a building on Francouzská Street. They were 53 and 41 at the time. The 59-year-old woman then managed to escape from the burning building and ended up in the hospital with an irritated airway. In addition to double murder and attempted murder, Gaspar was charged with damaging another’s property. The police were unable to track down the second alleged perpetrator mentioned in the indictment.
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