Prague – The 29-year-old man who brutally murdered a Czech historian and his wife last year was sentenced this week to 28 years in prison, reports Tyden.cz.
Dalibor Skopan confessed to attacking and stabbing Jiri Fiedler and his wife at their Prague home in March 2014. In order to gain access to Fiedler’s apartment, Skopan feigned interest in Fiedler’s work archiving information related to Jewish cemeteries, monuments and abandoned synagogues in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. Skopan’s real intention, however, was to ask Fiedler for money because he was facing homelessness.
At sentencing, the judge said Skopan’s act was particularly violent because he had attempted to burn down the Fiedler’s apartment in an effort to cause an explosion and obliterate traces of evidence of his heinous crime.
The judge said that by closing all the apartment windows and turning on the stove burners, Skopan also endangered the lives of the other residents in the building. Following the murders, Skopan stole jewelry and several books which he sold for about $200.
The Fiedler’s were discovered by their son some two weeks after their murder.
It is still unclear whether Skopan acted with premeditation to kill the couple or if he decided to do so once he was already on the premises.
