Czech attorney claims police tampered with evidence in shooting of Romani man

News server iDNES.cz reports that the father of Ladislav Tatár, the Romani man shot dead on New Year’s Day last year, and his attorney want the state prosecutor to reopen the investigation into the shooting. A non-Romani pensioner shot two Romani brothers, Ladislav and Patrik, in the early morning hours of 1 January 2012 in Tanvald, killing the one and injuring the other. The deceased’s father and his attorney claim to have new evidence and have allegedly found many discrepancies in the previous investigation.

"We are counting on filing a motion for a new investigation soon," attorney Robert Pelikán told iDNES.cz. He believes there are many serious discrepancies in the file on the investigation.

"The most important is that one of the pieces of evidence, the knife which the youths allegedly used to attack the man, was exchanged. The decision of the state prosecutor primarily relies on that knife, but the object in evidence is not from the scene. The knife that was sent for DNA analysis is completely different from the object found at the scene of the crime,"

the attorney claims.

As news server Romea.cz has already reported, new information in the case was revealed yesterday when a documentary film by directors Filip Remunda and Vít Klusák, "Life and Death in Tanvald" (Život a smrt v Tanvaldu) was broadcast on television. The film can be seen here (in Czech only):
http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10408111009-cesky-zurnal/212562262600001-zivot-a-smrt-v-tanvaldu/video/

Tatár’s father, who has performed his own investigation into his son’s death, made an audio recording of an eyewitness who insists that the Romani youths did not assault the pensioner. He interviews the eyewitness in the documentary.

"They came toward each other and grabbed on to one another. I did not see anything like the two of them attacking him from behind. They were facing off against one another, they weren’t down on the ground. Then when they started fighting they fell to the ground and shots rang out," the secret witness describes the incident.

"[The shooter] says they attacked him from behind with a knife," the father of the deceased responds, to which the eyewitness says:  "No, I didn’t see anything like that. They fell on their sides and [Ladislav] was on top of him. Then [Patrik] ran up and the shooting started."

According to the family’s attorney, this testimony will be referenced in the motion to reopen the investigation. The documentary filmmakers have also expressed doubts about the official version of events in an interview for news server Romea.cz.

"I don’t much believe the version of events given by Patrik. The statement he gave to Czech Television is rather untrustworthy, At the same time, there are  cracks in the statement made by Mr Sieber [Editor’s Note: The shooter] when it is confronted with the other actors’ statements. In my opinion the truth is still not known," Remunda told news server Romea.cz.

His colleague also has doubts. "I can’t very well imagine that when you are walking down a narrow, snowed-over little footpath after midnight on New Year’s Eve that you pass by someone, suddenly say to yourself ‘Hey, I should stab him!’, turn around, run over to him and start slugging him from behind. That’s just nonsense. Some insult must have occurred, and even so, in my opinion it should not have ended with gunfire," Klusák told Romea.cz .