VERDICT: Czech court acquits defendant who caused the death of a Romani man last year because he acted in necessary self-defense

The prosecutor ultimately proposed he be sentenced to around five years in prison for bodily harm and manslaughter. The defense proposed he be acquitted.

The defendant had previously denied his guilt and said he acted in self-defense. The court is releasing the reasoning of its verdict.

The case led to tensions between Romani people and Ukrainians in the Czech Republic. “It has been proven that this behavior did not rise to the level of a felony. The deed did not happen the way the indictment described it,” said presiding Judge Dita Řepková.

The indictment described the actions of the injured parties as well as the behavior of Rohozin. “We find that the behavior of the defendant has been proven to have featured the signs of necessary self-defense as defined by our Criminal Code. It is true that bodily harm was caused, as was the death of a young person. That is unfortunate. On the other hand, we will not criminalize behavior that conforms with what the law allows us to consider necessary self-defense,” the presiding judge said.

Prosecutor Petr Bejšovec said the requalification of the charges from murder to manslaughter happened on the basis of expert testimony from psychiatrists and psychologists. “I came to the conclusion that the conditions had been met for [the defendant] to have acted in a state of significant agitation and fear. I accented that in my closing argument and motion,” he said.

Bejšovec said he will study the verdict in detail and decide whether to appeal. He also said that while it should not have done so, the case has sparked nationalistic passions.

“Under no circumstances did this crime have a nationalistic subtext. Let’s not look for any such thing there. This specific case was an unfortunate event,” Bejšovec said.

Neither the defense counsel nor the acquitted defendant have spoken to the media. Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková posted the following message to Facebook along with a graphic explaining the appeals process in such a case: “I’ve been following the trial at the Regional Court in Brno since this morning and the verdict in the case of the death of a young Romani man. Right now I am waiting to read the court’s reasoning, and I am also following whether the prosecutor will take advantage of the opportunity to appeal this verdict. It is necessary to remain calm and wait for more detailed information.”

“I am thinking of the family and the loved ones of Nicolas, for whom such a verdict might be extremely sensitive and stressful,” Fuková also posted. Brno resident and Romani community member Tomáš Ščuka, a civil society member of the Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs, told the Czech News Agency outside the courthouse that: “This verdict is a big disappointment to me. This is not the first time that an adequate punishment has not been handed down in a case where the victim is from the Romani community. Today it turned out like that again. The lack of trust in the justice system on the part of the Romani community is simply justified.”

Ščuka said he would be getting advice on whether to protest the court’s decision. Several dissatisfied Romani people expressed their disagreement with the decision in front of the courthouse after the verdict was announced.

The protesters covered their mouths with signs reading: “They’ve silenced us!! Human lives matter.”

According to the indictment, Rohozin assaulted three people with a knife near a tram stop and injured them such that they required hospitalization. One later died in hospital.

The deceased was a young Romani man. Soon after his death, part of the Romani community started spreading hate against Ukrainians, and the events of 10 June also sparked unrest in Brno.

The trial began in mid-December, when Rohozin and the two surviving injured parties testified. Rohozin told the court that he and his friends had been taking the tram to a fireworks show at the reservoir when a small group of people began making noise on board the tram.

Rohozin said the people were playing music, being loud, and swinging from the straps used by passengers to keep their balance. “Once it became unbearable, I asked them to knock it off,” the defendant testified.

His intervention sparked a conflict on board the tram during which he said the other people shouted abuse at him, and the conflict continued after they all disembarked. According to Rohozin, a small group of three people assaulted him, so he drew his knife to get them to leave him alone.

Rohozin said he swung the knife without noticing whether he made contact with anybody. Both of the surviving injured parties testified in court that they had been drinking and singing on board the tram and that Rohozin had yelled at them and threatened to punch them.

“We were on the tram, we were smoking and listening to music, a group of about 15 or 16 of us. We argued with a gentleman who started to yell at us and tell us to stop singing, he started shouting at us. Then we got off of the tram and assaulted him,” one of the injured parties described the situation.

Selected facts related to the case of the death of a young Romani man in Brno

– Roman Rohozin, originally from Ukraine, was charged with murder after a young Romani man died as a result of his using a knife during a scuffle. The incident transpired on 10 June 2023 around 19:40 on the sidewalk connecting the Přístaviště tram stop with Přístavní Street. Rohozin got into a dispute with a small group of people on the tram who, according to eyewitnesses, were being loud and whom he tried to get to calm down. The situation grew into a conflict resulting in the death of a 23-year-old man and injuries to two others caused by Rohozin’s knife; he suffered injuries as well.

– Today, in his closing arguments, the prosecutor changed the legal qualification of the charges from murder to manslaughter. He proposed a sentence of around five years in prison for bodily harm as well. The Regional Court in Brno ultimately acquitted Rohozin, saying what happened was not a felony, but necessary self-defense.

– Eyewitnesses gave varying testimonies in court. According to the first injured party, Rohozin started shouting and threatening them with his fists, which was why they assaulted and punched him after disembarking from the tram.

– According to the second injured party, they punched Rohozin more than once after disembarking. The second injured party said they had been drinking and smoking on the tram. “The defendant shouted at us, asked us what we were doing and threatened us with his fists. We got off of the tram and he walked toward us, heading in the direction of the Přístaviště stop. He shoved me and got punched once and then twice more,” the second injured party described the conflict. After that they walked along the road, where he said the conflict continued. However, he never saw the defendant pull his knife, as he was stabbed from behind.

– Rohozin told the court he had acted in self-defense after being assaulted. He said the group of three attacked him after disembarking and as he was walking toward the fireworks show at the reservoir. He testified that while on board the tram they had been loud and he had asked them to knock it off. He said he drew his knife to defend himself and never even knew he had struck anybody with it. The woman who was on the tram with him testified that he was not aggressive when speaking with the small group on board the tram. They then began beating him up at the tram stop.

– An eyewitness who was on board the tram testified in January that the group of young people had been noisy and were playing their music loudly. “It began to escalate when we exited the tram,” the eyewitness said. According to him, a scuffle started between the defendant and the small group and punches were thrown. The scuffle reignited a moment later when one man jumped over the barrier at the tram stop and set off after Rohozin. “The entire conflict started all over again, they were shoving and punching each other, I didn’t see everything that went on,” the eyewitness said.

– Police arrested Rohozin shortly after the death transpired and he was taken into custody on 13 June as a possible flight risk. He spent more than two months in custody. The Brno Municipal Court decided to release him from custody in July, but the prosecutor filed a complaint against that decision. The Regional Court upheld the Municipal Court’s decision to release him in August. According to the Municipal Court, Rohozin had been significantly weakened by the material conditions of his custody. He signed a written pledge to remain in the country and was supervised by a probation officer.

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– In October, the prosecutor charged Rohozin with murder and bodily harm. The Regional Court in Brno began the trial in mid-December and continued it in January. Over three days of hearings, the court heard from experts and eyewitnesses and the judge read documented testimony into the record. The closing arguments and verdict were originally meant to be heard on 1 March, but due to the judge’s illness, the final hearing was postponed for three weeks.

– Soon after the death of the young Romani man, some Romani community members started spreading hatred against Ukrainians and the events of 10 June sparked unrest in Brno. One week after the incident about 1,000 people visited the public space in front of Brno’s Janáček Theater to pay their respects to the deceased. The gathering became an anti-government demonstration even though it was supposed to be a peaceful assembly and a demonstration previously planned for that same location had been cancelled. In Prague about 40 people came together that same afternoon for a happening about the case.

– Conflicts between Romani people and Ukrainians happened elsewhere last summer as well. On 1 July police in Pardubice had to intervene in a scuffle involving 18 people. One participant in that conflict was lightly injured. In Pardubice the next day, hundreds of Romani people protested, demanding security. Last December two of the Romani men who had participated in the mass scuffle with Ukrainians in Pardubice were sentenced to performing 150 and 200 hours of community service work. The court sentenced a Ukrainian man involved to seven months in prison, suspended for 1.5 years.

– The tragic scuffle in Brno was also reviewed by the Municipal Court there, which tried the two surviving injured parties, both Romani men, for disorderly conduct. At the end of January the court sentenced them through court order for assaulting Rohozin, physically and verbally, after disembarking from the tram. They caused him bruises and contusions. According to news server iDNES.cz, both received suspended sentences, one of seven months in prison suspended for 20 months, the other 10 months in prison suspended for two years.

– The interethnic tensions that arose after the death of the young Romani man were also included in the Czech Interior Ministry’s report on extremism for the second half of last year. According to that report, purveyors of disinformation endeavored to exacerbate the situation between Romani people and Ukrainians, tendentiously presenting themselves as defenders of the rights of Romani people. Several Romani influencers expressing their opinions in live broadcasts on social media contributed to radicalizing part of the Romani community. Several figures in the Romani community, however, did their best to reduce tensions, according to the ministry.

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