Olomouc, North Moravia, March 23 (CTK) – The Czech High Court in Olomouc rejected on Thursday the appeal by U.S. citizen Kevin Dahlgren, 24, whose life sentence for murder of a four-member family of his Czech relatives in Brno has taken effect.
Dahlgren will be kept in tough security detention, the court decided.
Dahlgren’s defence demanded his acquittal, arguing that he was insane when the crime occurred in 2013. However, new expert opinions said he was responsible for his behaviour.
Dahlgren is the first U.S. citizen who the USA extradited to the Czech Republic.
Dahlgren suffers from a serious personality disorder, which, however, does not significantly reduce his recognition and control capability, a team of experts said in a new assessment submitted to the court of appeals.
The experts upheld the previous conclusions by other Czech specialists who said Dahlgren was responsible for his behaviour.
The experts said Dahlgren, suspected of killing the Czech family, the father, the mother and two sons, including an underage one, talked to them about the murder, its details and circumstances.
Dahlgren told the experts that it was his inner voice that led him to killing. It said he was a chosen man who should make a bloody sacrifice from among his blood relatives. His voice also spoke of Hitler.
Before killing the first victim, he heard the voice incite him to take an axe that was lying at a fireplace, the experts told the court, referring to their interview with him.
The probability that he might repeat a murder is high, the experts said, proposing that he be placed in a tough-security detention facility.
A personality disorder was behind Dahlgren’s deed. He developed an inner dialogue to talk with himself and thus solve his life-long aggressiveness, the experts said.
He is neither schizophrenic nor does he suffer from any combination of other disorders, they said.
They said Dahlgren is capable of recognising the unlawful character of his steps. He told them that during the crime he was aware that it is unlawful and he will be punished, Jiri Svarc, head of the Prague-Bohnice psychiatric clinic, said.
However, Dahlgren denied in the courtroom on Thursday that he knew that his deed was unlawful.
In their new assessment, the Czech team of experts upheld the conclusions drawn by the previous Czech team. On the other hand, U.S. experts previously said Dahlgren’s capabilities were considerably reduced when he was committing the crime.
Svarc said his team considers the U.S. conclusions expedient and aimed to support Dahlgren’s defence.
The Czech experts said that Dahlgren, in an interview with them, admitted his lifelong desire to kill. He said he felt like killing a prison warden or a fellow prisoner and escaping from prison, Svarc said.
Dahlgren killed the four members of the Czech family in their house in Brno, where he was temporarily staying, in May 2013. Afterwards, he left for Austria and boarded a flight to the USA. The U.S. police detained him at the Washington airport on May 23 based on an arrest warrant issued by the Czech authorities. The U.S. courts later approved his extradition to the Czech Republic, where he was transferred on August 31, 2015.
