[imagesource: Reuters]

Remember that cage scene from Silence of the Lambs?

Hannibal Lecter, played supremely by Anthony Hopkins, manages to fool the guards that bring him food and what ensues is an iconic scene.

Many serial killer movies feature the baddie inside a cage of some variety and this has played out in real life, too.

Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of 52 murders, appeared in court in an iron cage so that he wouldn’t attack the families of victims.

Mikhail Popkov, who murdered 22 women in Russia, has also appeared in court confined to a cage.

Enter Czech President Milos Zeman, who appointed opposition leader Petr Fiala as the country’s new prime minister.

He did so while confined inside a plexiglass box at his residence due to testing positive for COVID-19, reports the BBC:

The president was wheeled in by hospital staff in full protective gear. Czech rules require a positive patient to observe two weeks of self-isolation.

He caught Covid just after a spell in intensive care for unrelated problems.

Image: Reuters

The 77-year-old is a heavy smoker and former heavy drinker who uses a wheelchair and suffers from diabetes.

The ceremony had been previously delayed with the plexiglass cubicle designed especially for the occasion:

The country has seen much political turmoil over the past few months. I would hold back on any sympathy for Zeman, though:

Fiala is the leader of a five-party coalition that won an October parliamentary election, ousting populist billionaire Andrej Babiš as prime minister…

Zeman remains a controversial political figure, calling transgender people “disgusting” in a June television interview.

He went on to say that anybody who undergoes a sex-change operation “is basically committing a crime of self-harm”.

Zeman also offered his support for a law in Hungary which sought to ban the portrayal or promotion of homosexuality among under-18s.

[sources:bbc&dailybeast]