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The Man Who Stepped In - Obchodná Street
In the early hours of 26 May 2018, Henry Acorda, a 36-year-old Filipino, stepped in to protect two colleagues from a drunk man on Obchodná and was kicked in the head; he died five days later, and his attacker was finally sentenced to nine years for manslaughter.
À propos de ce lieu
Obchodná, literally Trade Street, is one of Bratislava's oldest roads: first recorded in 1367, carrying trams since 1899, and today a busy pedestrian corridor of shops, cafés and late night bars running from the edge of the old town near Michael's Gate to Kollár Square. In the early hours of Saturday, 26 May 2018, it became the scene of a killing that shook Slovakia. Henry Acorda, a 36-year-old Filipino financial analyst who had made Bratislava his home, stepped between a drunk 28-year-old man and two female colleagues he was harassing. The man knocked him down and kicked him in the head, and Henry died in hospital on 31 May. Public anger grew when it emerged that a district prosecutor had let the attacker walk free, a decision the Prosecutor General's Office later found was not in line with the law. Candles, flowers and nightly rosary prayers filled the pavement, the Archbishop of Bratislava asked the family for forgiveness, and in 2019 the attacker, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, saw his six-year sentence raised on appeal to a final nine years. Four years before Henry's death, a robber with a submachine gun had killed a jeweller in one of the street's passages, a reminder that sudden violence has struck this ordinary shopping street more than once.
À retenir
- 9 years in prison — The final sentence for the man convicted of killing Henry Acorda, after prosecutors appealed the original six years.
- 5 days — Henry Acorda lay in hospital for five days without waking before he died on 31 May 2018.
- 1899 year — Tram tracks were first laid along Obchodná, and trams still glide through the pedestrian zone today.