The Czech Human Rights Minister, Czech Justice Minister, and the Czech Supreme Court will be taking up the case of a former police officer from the Roma community, Martin Barkóci, who is serving three years in prison for having supposedly covered up a violent assault. Karlovy Vary regional representative Jiří Kotek and Czech Senator Jan Horník, who have decided to help Barkóci, claim his trial was unfair and his imprisonment unjust.
"The entire verdict was based on the testimony of one man, who worked at the time for the Organized Crime Detection Unit (Útvar pro odhalování organizovaného zločinu - ÚOOZ). His testimony contradicts that of all the other witnesses, but the court did not take that into consideration at all,” Kotek told journalists yesterday.
Kotek and Senator Horník are now doing their best to get a retrial. "There are three routes we can take – an appeal to the Supreme Court, which we have filed, a retrial, or a motion by the Justice Minister, who can file a criminal complaint and even discontinue the serving of the sentence,” Kotek said. A retrial would be prescribed should new witnesses come forward. According to Kotek, however, the witnesses already summoned would give sufficient evidence to free Barkóci. He and Horník have turned to the Justice Minister and say she has promised to review the case.
Barkóci was accused of using his powers as a police officer to cover up a violent assault committed by two Roma against a non-Romani man who turned out to be an ÚOOZ informer. Barkóci has insisted he is innocent from the start. “We have enormous doubts not only about the process of the investigation itself, but particularly about the trial, which resulted in a verdict that is unsupported by the evidence. We are therefore requesting follow-up of this contrived trial and the release of Mr Barkóci,” Senator Horník said earlier.
A petition for a retrial has been circulating in Karlovy Vary and Ostrov, where the former police officer is from. "For the time being it has been signed by about 500 people, 300 of them from Ostrov. We send every hundred signatures to the Justice Minister,” Helena Kotková said.
Barkóci has a good reputation in Ostrov. Students who heard his lectures on the fight against bullying at area schools have also called for his release.
The courts have rejected all appeals for the time being. The High Court, the last instance to handle the case, reduced Barkóci’s sentence from four years to three and removed the claim of racial motivation from the verdict.
vybrali.sme.sk
