Slovakia: Two Romani children shot in Poprad, perpetrator not yet identified

Slovak news server TVnoviny.sk reports that two children have ended up in hospital in Poprad, Slovakia after being shot last weekend. Police say a still- unidentified perpetrator fired an air pistol at them on the street in the Matejovec quarter of Poprad.

Allegedly the reason the perpetrator did so was because the children were being "noisy". Doctors operated on the 13-year-old boy, removing a projectile from his thigh, and removed another projectile from the nine-year-old girl's calf.

Relatives of the boy told the Markíza television station, in a reportage published online by TVnoviny.sk, that the boy was so shocked at being shot that he has not spoken for several days now. The girl has also suffered psychological trauma in addition to the physical gunshot wound.

"They were singing, yes, but I don't fire a weapon at children because of that," the father of the boy says in the reportage. According to Slovakia's RTVS public broadcast television, the children's parents have accused a local businessman as the possible culprit.

The person in question says he was not involved with the shooting. He has turned in the weapon that he is licensed to hold to police.

According to the press spokesperson for the police in Prešov, Daniel Džobaník, they are investigating on suspicion of bodily harm, but nobody has been charged yet. Police are refusing to say whether they already know who the perpetrator is.

An expert on criminal law also appears in the RTVS reportage to emphasize that children are considered especially vulnerable and that if a crime is committed against children in particular the perpetrator could be sentenced to a longer time in prison than usual. Clear condemnation of how the perpetrator behaved in turning his weapon on the children is also part of the reportage.

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