Sentence for police who beat Czech Romany boy upheld

The Czech Supreme Court (NS) today upheld a two-year prison sentence for former Brno police officer Pavel Kypr for having beaten up and maltreating a 14-year-old Romany boy.

Kypr helped another police officer named Pavel Trenz who wanted to avenge the assault and robbery of his teenage son by a group of Romany teenagers.

The police on duty found two Romany boys from the group. They allowed one of them to leave the police car and then took the other boy to a Brno forest where they beat him up and twice put an unloaded pistol at his head and pulled the trigger.

Unlike Trenz, who was meted out the same sentence, Kypr lodged a recourse with the Supreme Court. It was rejected as unsubstantiated, NS spokesman Petr Knotig told CTK.

Both police officers denied the accusations, arguing that the testimony was provided by a minor person who is not trustworthy. However, forensic evidence proved that the boy really had contact with their weapon and the police car really had been in the forest on the place he indicated, he added.

"Whatever preceded the act, it is impossible to take law and order in one’s own hands," judge Marketa Jirsova said when delivering the first verdict.