Prague - Bohumír Ďuričko, who is charged with murdering Václav Kočka junior, wrote a letter of apology to the dead man's family, published by the ČTK news agency on its ČeskéNoviny.cz website.

"I apologize to the family Kočka, to all innocent bystanders, to my family and to real friends for an incident that took place at Mr Paroubek's book launch party and that ended in an irreversible tragedy. The regret and misery I'm carrying inside me can't be expressed with words," Ďuričko wrote in his statement.

The defendant added that the incident marred two lives who did not know each other and who had "a long and beautiful future" before them. The last sentence of Ďuričko's statement was: "Now there is and will be nothing."

Ďuričko shot Kočka two weeks ago at the bar of Prague's restaurant Monarch. Earlier that night, both man attended a book launch of opposition Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek there.

Aktuálně.cz has found out that the investigation of Kočka's murder is drawing near its end. The detectives believe the motive was a simple bar fight rather than a settling of accounts between the two entrepreneurs.