Latvian Police Rule Gay Man's Burning Death 'Suicide'
Months after a Latvian gay man was reportedly "doused in flammable fuel and set ablaze," police have ruled his death a suicide, despite initial reports of threats from a homophobic neighbor, New York Daily News reported.
"A final decision was taken in criminal proceedings and the criminal proceedings have been terminated because no criminal offense has been identified which would be a homophobic attack or related to intolerance or bringing someone to suicide," the police said in a statement, AOL.com reported.
As previously reported at EDGE, 29-year-old Normunds Kindzulis, a paramedic in the Latvian village of Tukums, was reportedly doused in a flammable liquid and then set on fire last April, suffering burns to 85% of his body. He died of his injuries in a hospital several days later.
LGBTQ+ advocates decried what they characterized as an act of homophobic violence in the form of an "arson attack."
But the police took a markedly different view, saying in a Nov. 1 statement that Kindzulis had committed suicide and suggesting that alcohol played a role. AOL.com detailed that the police described a "thorough" investigation that "included expert examinations, the questioning of 45 people, experiments, as well as checking of video and sound footage."
The police also insinuated that Kindzulis had killed himself due to troubles of a romantic nature, saying his supposed self-immolation had been "caused by personal motives in the context of domestic relations."
No partner has been specified or identified in news reports, but a second, unidentified man was also injured "as he rushed to Normunds' aid, campaigners urging the police to treat the incident as a homophobic hate crime claimed," the Daily Star said at the time.
That man claimed that "the two had been targeted by a man who lived nearby, who expressed homophobic sentiments, and who had made repeated threats against them," AOL.com said.
"We reported these threats to both the police and the neighbor's workplace, but there was no reaction," the man said, according to the Daily Mail. "We had to wait for someone to be mutilated or killed."
As far as the police are concerned, their determination of suicide is the end of the investigation, AOL.com reported.
"Chief of State Police Armands Ruks told Latvian Television that the investigation was now officially closed."