Sentenced while snoozing

5th November 2011

One of the most feared gangsters in Poland was sentenced to life behind bars earlier this week in one of the toughest and most expensive court cases the country has ever witnessed.

According to daily newspaper Fakt, the trial of 61-year-old Jan R. - also know by his nickname ‘Kulawy’ (‘Lame’) - cost PLN 4 mln in total and over five years involved a whopping 250,000 separate files.

But the defendant, paralyzed during a car accident in the mid 80s, lay motionless in the courtroom in a hospital bed snoring as the sentence was handed out to him.

Despite pleas from the judge to stay awake, the gangster was unable to focus on the case going on around him as he lay on his back next t ...