A regional court in Lithuania’s Panevėžys has started hearing the case of a Lithuanian man accused of killing a Polish football fan last year, the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Monday.
The Polish national, along with several thousand Polish fans, had come to Panevėžys, a town in the north Lithuania, on July 23, 2024, to watch a football match between the local team and Jagiellonia Bialystok.
According to the law enforcement authorities, the aggressive 39-year-old Pole got into a fight with two Panevėžys residents in the courtyard of a snack bar outside the stadium.
The Lithuanian national, 34, is suspected of having punched the Polish man in the face, causing him to fall and hit paving stones with his head. Leaving the fallen man behind, the Panevėžys residents got into their car and drove off.
The bar’s staff called an ambulance that took the Polish national to a local hospital, but the man left the hospital without being seen by doctors.
Three hours later, a police patrol spotted the same Polish man with bruises on his face sitting at a bus stop. The man was taken to hospital again and was found to have suffered a head injury.
He was hospitalised and underwent surgery but died on August 23.
The police found and arrested the Lithuanian man the day after the incident. He confessed to hitting the Polish man for fear of being hit himself, and after the Polish man fell down, he and his friend walked away for fear of being attacked by other Polish fans.
After the Polish man died in hospital, the pre-trial investigation was reclassified as murder. The Lithuanian man is now facing up to fifteen years in prison.
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