Daniel Bombic, indicted mainly for several extremist crimes, testified on Monday before the Specialized Criminal Court (ŠTS) in Pezinok. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts, noting that none of the acts listed in it constitute a crime. The victim, Martin Štromajer, also testified before the court, about whom Daniel Bombic, according to the indictment, wrote various defamatory posts. The process is to continue on Thursday (January 29).
First, Daniel Bombic commented on the OK sign, formed with the thumb and forefinger in a circle with the remaining fingers extended. The defendant noted that he has been using the given gesture since childhood, and also uses it for his fans so that they don’t worry about him. Regarding the injured Štromajer, he stated that he was the first to start bullying him on the Internet. Regarding the publication Protocols of the Elders of Zion, he added that he had nothing to say about it, since it is publicly available. The defendant also refused to answer the prosecutor’s questions.
Daniel Bombic’s statement was preceded by several hours of his defense attorney David Lindtner’s statement on the indictment. In it, he described the entire process as staged and politically motivated, whose effort is to criminalize the person of the defendant from the beginning. “This process shows all the elements of a political process, it takes place on political and media orders, and that is the essence. As for the indictment, we absolutely reject it,” Lindtner told reporters.
The defense attorney also submitted two procedural motions at the beginning of the hearing. With one of them, he asked to exclude some media from participating in the hearing on the grounds that in the past they had published articles that, according to Lindtner, violated Daniel Bombic’s right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. In the second proposal, Lindtner requested to suspend the criminal prosecution on the grounds that the judge would file an initiative to initiate proceedings before the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic on the compliance of the provisions of the Criminal Code, which defines extremist material, with the Constitution of the Slovak Republic.
The court rejected both proposals. Lindtner also submitted a request for the defendant’s release from custody. At Monday’s hearing, the victim Štromajer also testified. According to him, the whole conflict with the defendant started with his mistake, that is, by pressing the follow button on Daniel Bombic’s account on the social network. According to the victim, a short conversation between them followed. Daniel Bombic should have asked Štromajer why he wanted to follow him.
Štromajer claimed that he wanted to follow the defendant because he heard that Daniel Bombic was making disparaging comments about his former colleagues. The defendant should have commented on the victim for the first time several years ago. According to Štromayer, the defendant made a defamatory statement about him. “Daniel Bombic tried to portray me as a servant of the Zionists, compared me to various animals, attributed supernatural abilities to me,” Štromajer described. He added that Daniel Bombic stopped speaking about him only after he arrived in Slovakia from Great Britain.
He clarified that he filed the criminal complaint against Daniel Bombic only when he published his address, which, according to his words, made the victim feel threatened. Štromajer noted that Daniel Bombic’s posts about him changed his life. According to him, he and his family were under stress. “People shouted at us under the windows to climb out. They shouted at me that I was a hacker, all kinds of taunts and curses. Dozens of people have also threatened me through messages,” Štromayer demonstrated.
As a result of Daniel Bombic’s contributions, the victim was also fired from his job, according to him. However, the injured party does not request compensation. His legal representative stated at the beginning of the hearing that for the victim moral satisfaction remains the priority. The prosecutor filed an indictment against Daniel Bombic at the beginning of July last year for 26 attacks described in 12 counts. The indictment mainly concerns extremist crimes.
According to the indictment, Daniel Bombic committed these acts by publishing posts on the Internet through communication platforms. Daniel Bombica, for whom three arrest warrants were issued in the past, was escorted from Great Britain to Slovakia at the end of January 2025 under strict security measures. The Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic took him into custody at the end of April last year due to concerns about the continuation of criminal activity.
Last year in December, the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic rejected Daniel Bombic’s complaint against the decision of the Specialized Criminal Court to accept the indictment of the prosecutor of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Slovak Republic. He also rejected his complaint against the resolution of the ŠTS on the rejection of the defendant’s request for release from custody.
