First public trial of the methanol tragedy begins

The first public trial connected to the methanol poisoning tragedy last year began in Ostrava on Tuesday. The defendants, Petr Hlava and Marek Ženíšek, allegedly sold over 70 bottles of alcohol with false labels last October, most of which contained a lethal amount of methylalcohol. The police claim that the two men did so knowingly and could have caused hundreds of fatalities. In the end, one man died and six others were hospitalized and some will suffer long-term health problems as a result of ingesting the toxic drink. The man who died was the 31st victim of the so-called methanol affair, during which 47 people died as a result of drinking hard liqueur containing lethal amounts of methanol.