Moravian-Silesian courts failing to convict neo-Nazis

The recent acquittal of the defendants in the Rýmařov disco attack is only one of many cases in which courts in the Moravian-Silesian region have failed to bring neo-Nazis to justice for their crimes. On Wednesday, 13 April 2010 the Ostrava Regional Court issued its ruling on the appeals filed by the defendants and the prosecution in the matter of an attack committed by 15 neo-Nazis on the Erna club in the Silesian town of Rýmařov. The only two perpetrators prosecuted were David Vaculík, who is in custody today awaiting trial for last year’s arson attack in Vítkov, and Tomáš Vassiov, who has been sentenced four times since the year 2000 for, among other crimes, felony racially motivated assault against members of the Roma community. Last November the District Court in Bruntál convicted both defendants in the Rýmařov case of rioting. One received a suspended prison sentence and the other two years in prison. The appeals court has now acquitted them. The case thus becomes one of the large number of neo-Nazi attacks for which the courts have failed to deliver convictions.

The defense attorney for David Vaculík, Miroslav Dvořák, made the following comments to the media after yesterday’s verdict: “I must express my appreciation for the proceedings of the Regional Court in Ostrava, which did not permit itself to be influenced by public opinion or media interests and passed judgment on the case purely according to the law.” The regional state prosecutor, Pavel Šára, responded by saying: “In my opinion the verdict is not correct, we will wait to see it writing and consider whether to make use of extraordinary corrective measures by appealing to the Supreme Court.”

The other alleged perpetrator, Tomáš Vassiov, was sentenced by the first-instance court to two years in prison. He was not present at the appeals court when his acquittal was announced. The attack, however, was committed by more than two right-wing extremists. Police never succeeded in identifying the other violent offenders. “There are certain suspicions,” admitted regional judge Milan Ihnat, but the evidence against the defendants was said to be circumstantial. “No one recognized them at the scene. No one ever brought the charges home,” the judge said, adding that the police and state prosecutors had performed their work on the case poorly. “The court is entitled to its opinion,” the prosecutor told the press.

Both defendants claim to have nothing to do with the Rýmařov attack. They say no evidence of their participation in the crime was ever presented to the court, which is why they both appealed. The Bruntál state prosecutor also appealed because she disagreed with the legal classification of the crime and asked that the defendants also be charged with grievous bodily harm. An 18-year-old youth ended up in the hospital in Bruntál as a result of injuries sustained during the attack.

The police investigation into the crime revealed that the defendants’ mobile telephones had been used at the scene. However, the regional judge said police could not prove the defendants had the phones on them at the time the crime was committed. Because the crime was classified as a low-level rioting charge, police were unable to ask for transcripts of any phone calls or set up wiretapping, which in most cases of this kind is the only way to prove suspects have actually been involved in the crime.

The defendants are known criminal offenders

Police have long kept files on both defendants describing them as neo-Nazis with violent tendencies. David Vaculík is a young man from Horní Benešov who was found guilty in 2004 of participating in a violent attack committed by 40 neo-Nazis on the Hangar music club in Opava at the end of May 2003. Because he made financial restitution to the victim, the court withheld sentencing. Today he has a clean criminal record, even though it is very likely he has at least four arson attacks and several other violent crimes on his conscience.

Tomáš Vassiov was also found guilty of participating in the Hangar attack, and he also escaped punishment for it. While the Hangar trial was underway, he was found guilty of a more serious crime: The Regional Court in Ostrava sentenced him to five years in prison for participating with others in a racially motivated attack on three Roma in Ostrava-Zábřeh and for promoting Nazism over a sustained period of time. He was still a juvenile at the time of the violent crime, so his punishment was only half what the court believed he deserved. As an adult he would have been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 2006, Vassiov was released from prison after serving three years and given five years’ probation. Had he been found guilty of the Rýmařov attack, he would have had to serve the remainder of his earlier sentence.

Neo-Nazis have been wreaking havoc for years with impunity

Since the year 2007, police have shelved investigations into several arson attacks for lack of evidence, two in Moravský Beroun and one in Vrbno pod Pradědem. One arson attack in Horní Benešov was even handled as a mere misdemeanor. It was not until a family of nine almost burned to death in April 2009 that the investigation into that particular arson was taken up by the regional-level homicide division, which succeeded in clearing up the case. During that investigation, evidence was found which could also shed light on the earlier arson attacks. However, police are still staying quiet as to whether they will eventually re-open any of the cases that have been shelved.

Jaromír Lukeš, another defendant in the Vítkov arson case, has been investigated more than 10 times in the past for ideologically-motivated violent crimes. He has never been sentenced. In those cases, the neo-Nazis usually attacked at night wearing balaclavas. As in the Rýmařov case, the police never succeeded in proving that the individuals who found themselves at the scene had committed any specific criminal acts. They were also not permitted to engage in wiretapping.

Police often blame the courts for not allowing the material collected by their detectives into evidence, while the courts complain of lack of evidence. The Czech Interior Ministry, which could have corrected this situation long ago, continues to “play dead”.

Another problem is that the Moravian-Silesian police to this day reject all suggestions that an organized criminal group exists in their region which has intentionally committed serious crimes over a long period of time, among them the lynching of a young woman who testified to police about the criminal activity of these neo-Nazis. If police were to recognize the organized nature of these crimes, the state would then be obliged to investigate the cases, specifically through the Organized Crime Detection Unit, which has equipment, powers and staff incomparably superior to that of local police.

As long as the police and state prosecutor continue to base their work on the theory that these are all just random, spontaneous crimes being committed by an unorganized group of youths, we can expect most of them will never be cleared up. This series of arson attacks and similar crimes will continue with impunity.

What happened in Rýmařov?

On 25 October 2008, just before midnight, approximately 15 men wearing balaclavas interrupted a concert of hardcore and metalcore music at the Erna restaurant on Hrdinů street in Rýmařov. One of the concert organizers described what happened to the Bruntál daily as follows: “No one expected a neo-Nazi attack in Rýmařov … When one of these brave guys from the Bruntal Nationalists threw a smoke bomb through the window so he and his pals could drive the audience out, some people caught the full force of their attack. The Nazis were not ashamed to use brass knuckles, pneumatic nightsticks and similar gadgets. One boy was struck with a pole, and when he started to bleed the Nazis got scared and fled. When the attack took place, most of the guests did their best to take cover in one of the adjacent streets. By the time they got their bearings, they were unable to catch up to the Nazis, who had jumped in their cars and driven off.”

Concert organizers said the neo-Nazis had evidently been bothered by people listening to “degenerate music styles and culturally immature bands.” That was the explanation the neo-Nazis gave in a letter sent to town leaders.

“The tear gas forced the audience and guests of the restaurant to leave the building,” police spokesperson Pavla Tušková said at the time. A chimney effect inside the Erna forced the tear gas into the upper floors of the hostel located in the same building. Firefighters later had to evacuate seven residents and air out the premises.

“A group of perpetrators waited in front of the building with their faces covered and armed with sticks. They physically attacked the people running out of the restaurant and injured an 18-year-old male who was hospitalized in Bruntál.” The thugs used batons in their attack on these unarmed people, who had been temporarily blinded by tear gas.

The attackers evidently left the scene of the crime and headed straight for Bruntál. Police detained several of them in a restaurant there just before 1 AM. “The state police asked us for help in identifying two people. One of the men they brought in tried to get rid of a collapsible nightstick,” one of the victims told local police. The upshot of the entire investigation was that only those two men were charged with rioting. Police never succeeded in determining who had injured the main victim, J. L. According to an eyewitness who testified in court, Vaculík also beat unarmed girls with a baseball bat during the Rýmařov attack.

The Autonomous Nationalists of Bruntál published a letter on their web page in 2008 which they allegedly sent to the Rýmařov town hall in response to a performance that summer by the hip-hop band Battle Kings: “In time you yourselves will realize that you have erred in supporting events like the Battlekings. If it is extreme to be proud of your country, to defend the cultural heritage of your forebears, to not do drugs and to be proud to be a member of a European nation, if this government and this system believe all of that is extreme, then we are your extremists.” The Rýmařov town hall says it never received any such letter.