A 67-year-old man accused by the police of the June murder of an employee of the Prague Labor Office must pay Aero Vodochody one million crowns for long-term hate attacks. This was confirmed by the High Court in Prague last month. The aircraft manufacturer demanded two million crowns, so the court granted half of the amount sued. Even so, according to the server, this is probably the highest compensation that the company has judged in the country against the architect of the defamation campaign. The former employee of the company was given a condition already in 2017, but he continued the attacks and this June, when another court trial took place, according to the police, he shot a labor office employee, among other things.
The man worked at Aero Vodochody for two and a half years as a product designer. He had a fixed-term contract, valid until the end of August 2015. After that date, he left the company and began attacking the company publicly, for example through the YouTube network. He also started operating aero-vodochody.net, similar to the former employer’s official website. He published a number of indiscriminate articles about the company and its employees.
The company then defended itself in court with a lawsuit to protect its reputation. She argued that the man repeatedly maliciously attacked the basic elements on which her reputation is based, questioned the quality of production, the ability to maintain confidential information in relation to the military material produced, slandered key employees or misused its trademarks. She described the level of intervention as extraordinary.
The Chairman of the Board of Appeal, Jiří Čurda, writes in the decision available to the server that the satisfaction of CZK 1,000,000 is appropriate to the circumstances of the case – both the nature and extent of the interventions and, in particular, the intangible damage. “Nor can it be ruled out that the satisfaction awarded by the court of first instance exceeds that normally awarded by the courts in similar cases.
Already in 2017, the man received a condition for defamation and blackmail, namely ten months in prison with a postponement of a two-year probationary period. The court banned him from further attacks on the company. However, the man continued. The judge first extended his probationary period, but because he could not tell, she ordered a public hearing on June 28 this year. According to the server, she planned to convert the originally imposed condition on it and send the man behind bars for ten months.
The man did not appear in court, on June 29 he attacked a labor office worker in Bělehradská Street, the woman died the same day in hospital. The men suspected of the attack were detained by police in the center of the capital after several hours. Shortly after his arrest, the police said that the detainee described his actions and confessed to them, his motive being revenge for the alleged injustice. According to the police, shortly before the shooting at the employment office, the man burned acid on his former colleague in the parking lot in front of the Aero Vodochody building in Odolena Voda, where he previously worked as a designer. He also allegedly planted an explosive system that injured a police officer during a house search.
If he is charged and found guilty of murdering an official, an acid attack on an employee Aero Vodochody and an attempted murder of a police officer by an explosive system, the court can punish him with an exceptional sentence exceeding 20 years in prison. He is now serving ten months in prison with guards for slander and blackmail.
Source: iDNES.cz and CTK
