Former MP for TOP 09 Dominik Feri will go to prison. On Monday, the Municipal Court in Prague confirmed the November decision of the circuit court, which sent him to prison for three years for two rapes and one attempted rape. We discuss the case with Seznam Zpráv reporter Vojtěch Blažek and journalist Apolena Rychlíková.
What will you also hear in today’s 5:59 episode?
- Why the Court of Appeal did not change the sentence for former MP Dominik Feri.
- How journalists describe Feri’s behavior during court proceedings.
- And how this case changed society’s view of the position of victims of sexual violence.
After almost three years, a final verdict was reached in the case of Dominik Feri. The decision of the first instance court from last November to send Feri to prison for three years was upheld by the Municipal Court in Prague. According to the verdict, Feri committed two counts of rape and one attempted rape. In addition to financial compensation, Judge Libor Vávra awarded the victims interest on late payment.
Victims’ representative Adéla Hořejší praised the authorities for their approach to the injured women. On the contrary, Feri did not agree with the verdict. “Living in a state of law means respecting even those judgments with which we fundamentally disagree and regarding things that never happened. I can only state that the matter will naturally be appealed. I insist that no rape ever took place,” the politician commented on the decision.
During the trial, the ex-politician repeated the claims he had made for a long time. He stated, for example, that the women’s statements had cracks and that some of the facts they described were not true. Reporter News List Vojtěch Blažek in an interview with the 5:59 podcast, he explains why Feri’s defense attempts failed.
Photo: David Neff, News List
Reporter News List Vojtěch Blažek.
“The Court of Appeal justified its decision on several points. For example, he stated – and this is his agenda – that the first-instance court examined the case from all possible angles, assessed it well, assessed the credibility of the victims well, and stated that his verdict was right and wrong,” the journalist explained.
What did Feri defend himself with
At the same time, the Municipal Court in Prague agreed with the opinion of the circuit court that the statements of the victims were credible. He mentioned that this fact is evidenced both by testimonials and also by the fact that women confided in their loved ones with a traumatic experience.
Just to remind you: Two cases of rape took place already in 2016, when Feri was still a regional politician and a law student. Both took place in his then apartment in Žižkov, Prague. The third act then happened two years later, when Feri was a member of parliament, right in the building of the lower house of the Parliament. The injured woman stated that the deputy touched her in the kitchen and wanted to kiss her.
Feri tried to discredit all three victims. For example, he stated in his defense that the women did not remember the exact details and also claimed that they wanted media exposure. “The judge said that it is a situation (an act of rape) in which a person as a victim orients himself in a completely different way and cannot recall all the details,” says Blažek.
According to the reporter, however, the way he appeared before the court might have harmed the former politician. “Dominik Feri no longer appeared at the court of first instance as someone who regrets the whole situation,” he says. After all, judge Lenka Hájková already mentioned during the justification of the verdict that Feri laughed out loud during the statements of the women in the next room, where he had to leave to protect the victims.
What the case taught the Czech Republic
The behavior of the former politician in front of the court is similar to that of the journalist and documentarian Apolena Rychlíková. Together with journalist Jakub Zelenka, she was the first for Alarm and Deník N she described the stories of several womenwhich described Dominik Feri’s predatory actions.
“He is extremely fixated on his media image. Already at a very young age, he understood that it is necessary to build his image on social networks,” says Rychlíková. “It seemed to me, even during the whole trial, as if we were watching an avatar of Dominik Feri rather than Dominik Feri himself. It’s as if he’s not fighting to be acquitted, but rather to keep his face in the media,” he continues.
Photo: Michal Šula, Seznam Zpravy
Journalist and documentarian Apolena Rychlíková.
According to Rychlíková, however, it is more important to point out what the victims had to cope with due to the watched case that filled the media. “Of course, it must be very difficult for them – even for women who did not report it because they were scared of his aggressive behavior in court, and there are such – to see his face on the headlines and see how he defends himself,” he describes. And this despite the fact that the authorities and the judges of the first instance court tried to treat the women as correctly as possible.
At the same time, the journalist explains that the debates regarding how to protect the victims in the case of Dominik Feri also had a positive effect – they shifted the perception of victims of sexualized violence in the Czech Republic. According to her, thanks to the case, society has learned to be more sensitive to the victims of these serious crimes.
“And I think that during those three years, society, the professional public and even the press learned to trust the victims. This is the turning point, which I consider perhaps the most important,” says Rychlíková.
In the 5:59 podcast, you will also find out if Dominik Feri can still defend himself once morest the decision of the Municipal Court in Prague or how Apolena Rychlíková evaluates the importance of the case years later. Listen in the player at the beginning of the article.
Editor and co-editor: Dominika Kubištová, Eduard Freisler
Sound design: Ursula Sereghy
Sources of audio samples: archive of Vojtěch Blažek, ČT24, iDnes.cz, Tomáš Pika’s account on the X.com network
Podcast 5:59
The news podcast of Lenka Kabrhelova’s team. One essential topic every weekday in minute six. The most important events in the Czech Republic, in the world, politics, economy, sports and culture through the lens of Seznam Zpráv.
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