Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
CEN
A biker who called himself the Ghost Rider and taunted police by posting videos of himself breaking the law at high speed is to go on trial for allegedly trying to kill the man he believed turned him over to cops.
Detectives in the southern Swiss Canton of Valais had spent months studying the videos in order to try to identify the man but got nowhere until they were apparently contacted by the then 20-year-old ‘Ghost Rider’s’ roommate.
That information reportedly allowed them to arrest the racer, identified only as Markus T. because of local privacy laws, and to charge him with numerous serious breaches of the road traffic laws while filming the videos which he then published on YouTube.
When Markus T. discovered that it was his roommate Martin V. who had apparently handed him over to police, he wrote threatening letters explaining what he was going to do while being held in investigative custody. He wrote: “In other countries, he would have already been hanging upside down and bleeding to death.”
However, despite threats he was released from investigative custody 2 weeks after his arrest on 9 March, and 6 weeks after that he entered the property where Martin V. was staying and attacked him, beating him on the head, back and arms with a steel bar.
Also on trial is the Ghost Rider’s girlfriend who apparently kept watch outside while the beating was taking place at the man’s home in the town of Brig in the southern Swiss canton of Valais.
A medical report on the injuries ruled it was lucky the man had not died, and he was hospitalised for 2 weeks on heavy medication after suffering broken bones and a fractured skull as well as an eye injury. He has since been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic shock similar to that suffered by US war veterans, according to the report.
He told local media: “At first when the physical injuries healed I thought I was over it.” But in autumn 2018 he had a nervous breakdown, and spent a year in a psychiatric hospital. The fact that the person who attacked him had still not been jailed was a source of constant stress, he revealed. He also accused police of not doing enough to protect him despite the threats.
He said they knew how dangerous he was, including an incident in December 2014 when they had tried to stop him and he had simply run a police officer over, seriously injuring his legs. A second police officer that tried to restrain him was punched in the face.
As well as arresting him, police also seized his computer and his motorbike and refused to discuss at the time how they had managed to track him down.
Analysis of the raw footage on his computer however clearly showed him speeding through the roads mostly in Oberwallis in Switzerland on his Suzuki travelling at speeds of up to 220 kph (137 mph) despite a local speed limit of 80 kph (50 mph).
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