Slovakia: Court acquits non-Romani youth of stabbing Romani man to death

The District Court in the Slovak town of Košice has acquitted a non-Romani youth of stabbing a Romani man to death even though there is no question he committed the crime. Several psychiatrists testified that he was not responsible for his actions at the time, while other experts came to the opposite conclusion.   

The Slovak youth responsible for taking the life of another human being was then released by the court because the experts testified that "he does not suffer from any mental disorder." The bloody incident took place at a bus station in 2010 in the town of Košice.

On the day he committed the assault, Andrej K. (age 20) of the Krupina district had just finished registering for his Master’s studies at a local college and was waiting for the bus. A Romani man, 40-year-old Zoltán Z. from the village of Sokoľana, approached him and asked him for money. 

The youth immediately drew a knife from his pocket and stabbed Zoltán Z. 22 times. The attack was so unexpected that the victim, who was under the influence of alcohol, had no time to respond.

News server Korzár.sk reports that the assault lasted just 40 seconds, and even though the victim received rapid medical care, he died one month later as a result of his injuries. Andrej K. was originally charged with battery.  

During the police investigation, mainly on the basis of an expert evaluation of the victim’s cause of death, the legal qualification of the crime was increased to "the particularly serious crime of murder". Despite this, the prosecutor saw no reason to remand the assailant into custody. 

Andrej K. refused to testify during the preliminary proceedings and maintained his silence during the main trial. He only revealed why he had drawn a weapon during his psychiatric interview. 

The assailant claimed that the Romani man, whom he did not know, had been bothering him and said he feared the man was about to kill him. An eyewitness at the bus station said that the late Zoltán used to regularly bother people there with his begging and that they had already thrown him out of the bus station once on that fateful day. 

The student’s attack on the Romani man was so fast that no one nearby managed to respond in time. CCTV footage of the murder has confirmed that. 

Two psychiatric evaluations of Andrej K. determined how the court has proceeded in his case. A first team of experts claimed the student found himself under the influence of a pathological affect at the moment of the assault, a state close to unconsciousness in which his ability to tell right from wrong and his capacity for self-control disappeared.  

A second team conceded that the youth was acting in a state of passion in response to stress, but insisted that his ability to tell right from wrong and his capacity for self-control were merely reduced, not gone entirely. The court then requested another evaluation from a third pair of experts, who spent several months elaborating their critique.

These experts determined that Andrej K. does not suffer from any chronic mental disease or disorder. However, in that particular fraction of a second, he found himself under the influence of a delusional, psychotic, but temporary, disorder.

"When the Romani man stood in front of the youth, he was pathologically convinced that he was about to die, that he was about to be murdered. The trigger for his brutal aggression was his acute reaction to that stress. We could not find any other explanation for his behavior," an expert from the third team said, adding that this was the first case of its kind he had seen.

According to this psychiatrist, Andrej K., at the time of attack, could not control his own behavior or recognize the danger it posed. In other words, he was not responsible.

The experts did not suggest that the youth should seek prophylactic treatment, as in their view he is not mentally ill. "Given that he was in such a state of mind, I do not insist that the defendant be found guilty, and I propose the court acquit him by reason of insanity," the prosecutor said; defense counsel Marta Šuvadová joined that opinion.     

Andrej K. has communicated that he is sorry about what happened and said he will have the experience in his mind’s eye for the rest of his life. The court in its acquittal stated that the defendant was not criminally liable by reason of insanity; the verdict has taken effect.