Czech Republic: Racists who attempted arson in Býchory heading to trial

The Regional State Prosecutor has filed charges of racially motivated arson against four defendants in the case of an attack in which they threw a flaming torch into a Romani family’s home last summer. Regional State Prosecutor Martin Staněk in Prague gave information about the lawsuit and the crime to the on-line daily TÝDEN.CZ.

The daily reports that the charges were filed at the suggestion of police who concluded their investigation of the attack at the end of last year. “The investigation finished on 21 December. Detectives proposed filing charges of racially motivated grievous bodily harm against a 21-year-old youth. He faces between five and 12 years in prison,” said Central Bohemian Police spokesperson Soňa Budská. That qualification of the crime has been maintained, as has the possible sentencing the other three perpetrators face. As per the Penal Code they could serve anywhere between six months and three years in prison for committing violence against a particular group.

The four suspects were not remanded into custody, as the Kolín District Court saw no reason to do so. Police concluded their investigation into the racially motivated attack after receiving the last important affidavit from fire protection experts. The defendants and their attorneys have been able to review the file since mid-December.

Victims of hate crimes have the option of joining the case in pursuit of compensation for damages. “Since July 2011, hate crime victims have also been able to seek compensation for so-called ‘non-material harm’, i.e., harm to their personality rights that arises as a result of the crime. There is always such harm in hate crimes matters, the victims have been attacked because of some unchangeable characteristic – the color of their skin, their ethnicity, their faith or their sexual orientation,” lawyer Klára Kalibová of the organization In IUSTITIA told news server Romea.cz.

The attack took place in the late night and early morning hours of Sunday 10 July and Monday 11 July 2011. The young men allegedly first got into the mood for “action” at a neo-Nazi concert in Velký Osek, where hundreds of ultra-right extremists met up. After the concert they are said to have set out on a march through Býchory, where witnesses say they loudly chanted “Bohemia for the Czechs” (“Čechy Čechům”) and racist slogans. One of them then threw a flaming torch through the first-floor window of an apartment occupied by a Romani family. No one was injured during the attack and the torch was put out. There were three children in the apartment at the time.

Some Czech media outlets reported the torch had been put out by the eight-year-old son of the victimized family. News server Romea.cz has reported that those claims are untrue. The torch was put out by an adult friend of the family who was visiting them and watching television in the room where the torch landed (the family’s son was also nine years old at the time, not eight).

The young men accused of perpetrating the crime face prison sentences of between three and 12 years because the crime was committed by two or more people. The youngest member of the group, aged 21, could receive the longest sentence.

A similar case took place last August in Krty (Rakovník district). A still-unidentified perpetrator attacked a Romani home in the late night and early morning hours of Tuesday 9 August and Wednesday 10 August. A Molotov cocktail flew in the window of the small house at the railroad yard in which they were living and landed next to an infant’s crib. A one-year-old child was sleeping there whose parents were in the room at the time. The father succeeded in putting out the flaming bottle and burned his foot in doing so.

The most infamous racially motivated attack against Romani people in recent years remains the case from April 2009 in which four neo-Nazis threw three Molotov cocktails into a small house in Vítkov. Three people were injured during the subsequent blaze. An infant who was not yet two years old suffered the most serious injuries. The perpetrators were sent to prison by the court last March for 20 and 22 years.

Not quite one year after the Vítkov case, a similar attack on a small home occupied by Romani people in the Bedřiška settlement of Ostrava drew attention as well. That case was officially found not to have been motivated by racism, but by disputes between neighbors. Last March the juvenile perpetrator of the crime was sent by the court to prison for four years, while his mother got 7.5 years for instructing him to commit reckless endangerment.