Arsonist was on welfare, spent more time with friends than with his child

The majority of witnesses called from the circle of those who know the four men charged with the Vítkov arson attack refused to testify at the Regional Court in Ostrava today. Of the nine witnesses summoned, three did not appear, and of the six in court only Jakub Demele testified. A neo-Nazi t-shirt with a Thor Steinar logo on it which defendant David Vaculík wore to court also became a topic of the hearing. The defendants were escorted into the courtroom just before 9:30. The first witness called was Tomáš Vassiov, who was given a conditional sentence for attacking Roma in 2001. In April the Regional Court in Ostrava acquitted him of attacking concert-goers in Rýmařov. David Vaculík had been his co-defendant in that case. Vassiov refused to testify. While leaving the courtroom he gave the defendants a thumb’s up as a gesture of support. State prosecutor Brigita Bilíková tried to ask him why he would not testify, but one of the defendants’ attorneys objected to the question as inadmissible. Marek Kuděla, another neo-Nazi, also refused to testify. An associate judge then read Vassiov’s previous testimony to police into the record. Vassiov’s previous testimony stated that he had been with Vaculík after the arson attack to visit a pharmacy, where Vaculík had asked him to buy some cooling ointment. Vassiov claimed to have learned of the arson attack from the internet and to have had nothing to do with it. “I have nothing to do with Vítkov, I knew nothing about it, I did not organize anything to do with it, I didn’t even know something like that was being planned. All I know is that when we were sitting at the table after Janov there was a lot of talk about how it would be good to something bigger,” Vassiov told police officers. “Ivoš said it was great at Janov, but it wouldn’t solve anything, that it would be good to do something big.” The pogrom on the Roma living at Janov was organized by neo-Nazi groups together with the Workers’ Party. “I found out about the fire sometime in April, and then Vaculík contacted me. We met outside, he sent me an SMS – he wanted me to go with him to the pharmacy because his hand hurt. He wasn’t talking much and he was wearing an ordinary sweat suit. We went to the pharmacy and he gave me money to buy some cooling ointment. I asked him why. He asked me whether I had seen the news about what happened in Vítkov. I asked him if he had been there and he wouldn’t answer. Outside he put the cream on his hand and I saw red marks all over it. While he was putting on the ointment he said not only his hand but also his eyebrows and his coat had been scorched,” news server iDNES.cz quoted Vassiov as having testified to police. Vassiov later met with another defendant, Jaromír Lukeš, who told him police were pressuring him to confess. Vassiov said he has known Lukeš 15 years and sees him once a month. He rejected the idea that the neo-Nazi fighters were somehow organized: “My friends and I aren’t organized – we just went to some demonstrations a few times, like Janov and the first of May in Brno.” Those events were convened by the Workers’ Party. The defendant Vaculík said Vassiov’s testimony to the police was untruthful, especially where it concerned him. The other defendants refused to comment. Petr Kausta, Vaculík’s attorney, said Vassiov testified under pressure because he had been detained by police as a murder suspect. Kausta said police forced Vassiov to testify and he spoke to protect himself. Testimony by other neo-Nazis to police was also read into the record. Marek Kuděla told police they had made fun of Vaculík’s burns. “We joked that they were from Vítkov,” he said at the police station. Kuděla admitted to having met Vaculík on the Friday before the fire. Vaculík’s attorney again repeated that Kuděla testified under pressure. “All I can say is that the witnesses were properly instructed during the preliminary proceedings. They testified completely voluntarily and in the presence of all four defense attorneys,” the state prosecutor said. The other two neo-Nazis, Marek Hnilka and Vít Schäfer refused to testify. At 10:15 the presiding judge announced a recess. “I believe this is proof of the attitude of that entire community toward this particular crime. Naturally, it is their right, if they have come to the conclusion that testimony would incriminate them, not to give it. I expected them not to testify,” Bilíková told the press during the recess. After the recess, the court read Marek Hnilka’s testimony to police into the record. “I am not a member of any movement, just a sympathizer of the Workers’ Party, which wants to solve the Roma problems,” his testimony began. “We talked about the need to turn the heat up on the Gypsies, show them our wrath, beat them up, maybe catch two or three and punch them up so they know we’re here… but no one made a specific suggestion.” Judge Miloslav Studnička then noted that defendant Vaculík had come to court wearing a neo-Nazi t-shirt with the Thor Steinar logo. When the judge asked Vaculík what the logo on his t-shirt meant, the defendant refused to testify. Markus Pape, one of the attorneys-in-fact for the victimized family, pointed out that Vaculík’s clothing was the kind usually worn at neo-Nazi marches and could be taken as a threat. He warned that the victims are to testify on Thursday and said such intimidation could lead to their not testifying. “That t-shirt depicts a logo of violence, the Thor Steiner brand, which is usually worn at neo-Nazi marches. I do not want Vaculík’s behavior to intimidate the witnesses,” Pape said. Kausta, Vaculík’s attorney, rejected the claim that his client was intimidating or otherwise influencing witnesses and said Pape’s objection was mere speculation. The attorney explained that his client bought the t-shirt legally in a store and that Thor Steiner was the name of the designer. He also moved for the state prosecutor to investigate Pape for libel and asked to be informed of the results of the investigation. Vaculík said the image on the t-shirt was of a mythological figure: “I bought it because I like it.” The clothing brand, originally German-owned, was founded by neo-Nazi Axel Kopelke. Its logo includes a rune. At 11:30 the presiding judge announced an hour recess. “My client has told the judge he will change his clothes even though in his opinion they do not mean anything,” Kausta told the press. Vaculík put on a red t-shirt during the recess. After the recess, the judge was to have heard the testimony of Nikola Šanová, Jaromír Lukeš’s girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, but she was too upset and refused to testify. “While leaving the courtroom she looked at Jaromír Lukeš and almost burst into tears,” reported news server iDNES.cz. The court then read Šanová’s testimony to police into the record. She had testified that Lukeš preferred to spend time with his friends rather than with her and their daughter and that he often went to the pub. When they met he had been working as a manual laborer, but since 2008 he had been unemployed and was on welfare. She said demonstrations were what his friends had in common. “It bothered me that he would go to a demonstration at all. Once someone came for him, he said he was going to have a cigarette and I didn’t see him for two days. I told him it bothers me that he goes to those things and that I was afraid for him and for our little girl, but it was all the same to him, he just listens and doesn’t say anything. Then I saw him on television in a report about a demonstration. (…) We had disagreements, he moved out twice, each time for a few months.” Šanová cried several times during the interrogation and confirmed to police that Lukeš loathes the Roma: “He swears at them, calls them ‘black mugs’.” Šanová allegedly asked Lukeš several times whether he had anything to do with Vítkov. Lukeš denied everything. The defendants did not want to comment on the testimony. Another witness, R. M., did not appear. At the close of today’s hearing, Markus Pape proposed that the first two witnesses, Kuděla and Vassiov, be charged with not preventing and failing to report a crime. The state prosecutor, however, said investigators had already reviewed that option and decided against it. The trial was adjourned and will continue tomorrow at 9 AM. According to the indictment, Václav Cojocaru, Lukeš, Ivo Müller and Vaculík, all right-wing extremists from the Bruntál and Opava districts, attacked a house occupied by a nine-member Romani family during the early morning hours of 19 April 2009. Three of them each threw a Molotov cocktail through the windows while a fourth, Lukeš, waited in the car. Three people were injured during the subsequent blaze. The most serious injuries were suffered by a little girl who was not yet two years old and who suffered deep burns over 80 % of her body. According to the indictment, the crime was intended to gain publicity for extremist groups and was connected to the 120th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler.