Two Molotov cocktails were thrown in Opava attack

The recent attack on Rybářská street in Opava involved two Molotov cocktails. No one was injured, Czech Television reports. Perpetrators threw the bottles into the entryway of an apartment building at about 1 AM Saturday. The doors to the building are usually open. The case was reported to police in Opava at 6:30 AM that same morning by a 55-year-old occupant of the building.

“I was taking the trash out in the morning and there were two bottles lying there. One had exploded and started to burn, the second never exploded,” the witness told Czech Television. Criminal investigators, firefighters and police officers came to the scene.

Police claim there was no fire. “The bottles never caught fire, no fire ever started, there were no injuries and no damages were caused,” Opava Police Commissioner René Černohorský said.

Černohorský said the content of the bottles has yet to be precisely determined. A source familiar with the case said the bottles had wicks and may have contained some kind of oil.

Police are investigating the case as one of reckless endangerment. “The bottles with the unidentified contents were secured and sent for chemical analysis to chemical experts,” Černohorský said.

Residents of the building told the Czech Press Agency today that even though their windows have recently been replaced, the main doors to the building are old and will not close, so anyone can get in. They were quoted as saying the bottles were thrown at around 1 AM, that they were used alcohol bottles, and that both had shattered.

Families with children live in the building and the residents are now afraid, as they believe the attack could have been racially motivated just as other recent incidents in the same region have been. Roma are said to experience verbal assault from non-Roma in the town often, for example, when shopping in the nearby store.

Mayor of Opava Zbyněk Stanjura (ODS) told the Czech Press Agency that Rybářská street is not an exceptional part of town in any way and that there have never been problems with similar attacks. He believes the crime must be condemned, as all crime should, and hopes the police investigate thoroughly and find the perpetrators, whom he hopes will receive harsh punishment.

Kumar Vishwanathan, who has worked for several years with the Roma community in the region, said today that no such attack should be underestimated and that much will depend on the upcoming verdict in the trial of last year’s arson attack in Vítkov, set to start in May. “Society must receive the clear signal that these are dangerous matters that will be punished,” the activist believes.

Vishwanathan said such attacks are not pranks and society should not forgive them. He believes some youths are starting to lose any sense of limits, and throwing a Molotov cocktail is becoming as normal to them as slapping someone. “They do not see that this is something completely different, that it’s not like a firecracker,” he said, adding that people are even beginning to threaten members of their own families with such attacks. Vishwanathan recently was contacted by an older woman whose grandson had made such a threat to her.

An unidentified arsonist or arsonists also attacked the single-family home of a Romani family in the Bedřiška settlement of Ostrava in the early morning hours of 14 March with a Molotov cocktail. No one was injured.

Last April, arsonists attacked the single-family home of Romani family in Vítkov with three Molotov cocktails. A little girl, Natálka, suffered second and third-degree burns over 80 % of her body and subsequently lost three fingers as a result of her injuries. Police managed to track down the alleged perpetrators in this case. The trial of the four right-wing extremists from Bruntál and Opava districts who have been indicted for the incident will start at the Regional Court in Ostrava on 11 May. The main hearing will be accompanied by extraordinary security measures. The men are charged with racially motivated attempted murder against multiple individuals, one of them a child. They face up to 15 years in prison but could receive exceptional sentencing or life in prison