Accused man Martin M. with his father before the beginning of the trial (source: TASR)
The Bratislava IV. District Court started a major trial in five cases of urine and excremental attacks in Bratislava, known as the “Fecal Phantom” cases, on August 18, 2016. The accused man Martin M. refused to admit to any wrongdoing during his testimony, the TASR newswire reported.
“I feel I am innocent,” said Martin M. at the beginning of the testimony, as quoted by TASR.
The testimony included a description of the circumstances immediately before and after his arrest. The defendant specified that he met an unknown man at a bar in Bratislava with whom he drunk greater amounts of alcohol beverages than usual, and that the next day he woke up in the tram smelly and dirty from excremen, adding that two police officers pulled at him and called him to go with them.
Subsequent recognition, during which several harmed women pointed at him, he considered as unlawful. Later, when one woman identified him as the attacker in a direct confrontation, Martin M. apparently mentally broke down.
“When the harmed woman kept her ground, I lost hope that I can win against all these people,” said Martin M., adding that nothing matters in that situation. “Then, I made the biggest mistake of my life when I confessed to what I did not do.”
The defendant claimed that he did not commit anything, he does not know the harmed women and at the time of the crimes he was at work, at home or with his parents. The women, however, have a different point of view as three of them identified the attacker in court and the fourth did not remember the situation correctly.
“The only thing I could do after the offender pissed on me was cry and scream,” said one of the witnesses in court, as cited by TASR. “During the escape, he turned around and I saw his face with a blissful smile.”
The father of the accused man noted in his testimony that on one of the incriminating days the whole family was in the Záhorie region due to a celebration of first holy communion of a family member.
The “Fecal Phantom” usually chose female victims at public transport stops in the late hours, either smearing excrement on their faces and clothes or urinating on their hair. The incidents took place from April to October 2015 on public trams and tram and bus stops in Bratislava districts Karlova Ves, Dúbravka and Ružinov. The prosecutor accused Martin M. for the crime of disorderly conduct for which he may face the risk of a custodial sentence of six months to three years, TASR wrote.
