Brutal neo-Nazi attack will not be punished

Today the Regional Court in Ostrava acquitted two youths charged with attacking people at a concert in Rýmařov. One of them, David Vaculík, is also a suspect in the arson attack on the home of a Romani family in Vítkov. The district court gave him a suspended sentence for the attack on the concert audience, but today the appellate court overturned the original verdict. Judge Milan Ihnát said the prosecution failed to prove the defendants had committed the crime.

The district court sentenced the other alleged attacker, Tomáš Vassiov, to two years in prison. A larger group of right-wing extremists had a hand in the attack, but the identities of the other perpetrators could not be proven.

“Certain suspicions do exist,” the judge admitted, but the evidence against the defendants is only circumstantial. “No one recognized them at the scene of the crime. No one can bring the charges home,” the judge said, adding that the police and the state attorney had performed their work poorly. “The court is entitled to its opinion,” the prosecutor told the press, adding that he will probably file an extraordinary appeal.

According to the prosecution, both of the men on trial and at least 10 other accomplices threw a tear gas smoke bomb into the Erno club in Rýmařov. When the audience ran out of the club, the attackers beat them with sticks and collapsible clubs. One person was injured, a young man who was hospitalized for a brain concussion and broken nose. After the attack the group traveled to the town of Bruntál, where police stood them off on the town square

When issuing the first verdict, Judge Vladimíra Kikerlová of the Bruntál district court called the behavior of the defendants very dangerous to society. “This was a planned, organized action,” Kikerlová said. Both defendants appealed the verdict, as did the prosecutor, who felt the punishments were too low.

Vassiov and Vaculík have had similar problems with the law before. Vassiov has been sentenced four times before, once to a five-year prison sentence for attacking three Roma in Ostrava; he spent three years in prison and was released early on parole. Vaculík was sentenced for his participation in a violent attack committed by 40 neo-Nazis on the Hangar music club in Opava in 2003; because he made financial restitution to the victims, he served no time.

At the start of May the Regional Court in Ostrava will start proceedings in the matter of the arson attack on the home of a Romani family in Vítkov. Three other right-wing extremists will stand trial together with Vaculík on those charges. The prosecution claims they threw three Molotov cocktails into the single-family home last April. The blaze completely destroyed the house. Of the nine-member family, three people suffered severe burns – Anna Siváková, Petr Kudrik, and their daughter Natálka, who was not even two years old at the time and who suffered burns over 80 % of her body. Police charged four youths from the Bruntál and Opava districts with the crimes, one of whom is Vaculík. They face between 12 and 15 years in prison, or perhaps even extraordinary sentencing.