Czech Republic: Defendant in arson attack on Romani home says he was "careless" with the torch

News server Novinky.cz has reported that the trial of the arson attack committed last July in Býchory (Kolín district) on a building occupied by Romani tenants has been taking place this week before the Central Bohemian Regional Court. Klára Kalibová, the attorney for the victims, has joined the proceedings seeking compensation for non-pecuniary harms. She wants each of the defendants, if convicted, to pay each of her four clients CZK 50 000.

The trial began with a reading of the indictment. Defendants Jiří Drahovzal, Michal Řehák, Jan Říha and Vojtěch Vyhnánek are charged with having thrown a lit torch into a Romani-occupied apartment on 11 July 2011. No one was physically injured. The curtains caught fire and the blaze was put out by a man watching television in the room where the torch landed.

Vyhnánek (age 21) was the first defendant to testify. He practically confessed to committing the crime but claimed it was unintentional. He also said he wanted to apologize for the “harm and unpleasantness” caused to the Romani family in whose home the torch had landed. “I am very sorry,” Vyhnánek said, calling his behavior a “fatal mistake” and a “combination of rashness and stupidity”. Prior to committing the crime he said he had been drinking all afternoon with some acquaintances at the local pub in Býchory. He was said to have consumed around 10 beers and a rum and cola.

Říha was said to have brought the torch to the front of the restaurant to use as an outdoor light. When the pub closed, the four defendants decided to go to one of their homes to continue drinking. Vyhnánek admitted they also discussed putting a scare into some Romani people. The group was said to have sung songs as they walked along and to have yelled anti-Romani slogans such as “We don’t want you here” (“My vás tady nechceme”).

It started to rain and the torch started to go out. The four made it to Vyhnánek’s home; the Romani family’s dwelling was across the street. Vyhnánek had allegedly wanted to get rid of the torch, which was reportedly already out or going out. “I was drunk, I just carelessly threw it away,” Vyhnánek described the crime for which he now faces up to 12 years in prison.

“Are you really going to claim that you just carelessly threw it away and it flew across the road into a first-floor window?” the judge responded.

“Yeah,” the defendant insisted. “I was drunk, I didn’t know where it would land. I just grabbed it and threw.” Řehák was then said to have pointed out to Vyhnánek that he had thrown it through an open window. The group then dispersed.

“I didn’t realize what all I had done until the next morning,” Vyhnánek said, adding that he would never have committed such an act sober. Later he is said to have sent the Romani family a letter of apology; the family had moved out of Býchory in the interim, and Vyhnánek wrote to them that they should come back and had nothing to fear. He added in court that while he had never had a bad experience with the family, he did state that they were sometimes noisy. He also claimed the Romani family kept a messy back yard.

Milan Demeter, the father of the victimized family, told news server Romea.cz, “We weren’t in court today. We testify tomorrow.”

The other three defendants face up to three years in prison for committing violence against a group and individual members of that group. The four defendants were released on their own recognizance.

According to the available information, the defendants got into a “fighting” mood on that day by attending an ultra-right concert in Velký Osek where hundreds of right-wing extremists met up. Afterward, according to the police investigation, they marched through Býchory shouting racist slogans. After the victimized family fled the apartment, which they own, they moved out of town in fear for their lives and have yet to move back. They lived with relatives for some time and then sublet a new place of their own.

The most infamous racially motivated attack against Romani people in the Czech Republic in recent years remains the case from April 2009 in which four right-wing extremists threw three Molotov cocktails into a single-family home in Vítkov (Opava district). During the subsequent blaze, three people were injured. The most serious injuries were suffered by an infant, Natálka, who was not yet two years old. The courts sentenced the right-wing extremists to either 20 or 22 years in prison. Two of those convicted are complaining to the Constitutional Court and demanding lesser sentences.