Czech court remands into custody man suspected of murdering Romani youth in Brno
The Municipal Court in Brno has remanded a 37-year-old foreign national suspected of murder into custody. The accused, according to police, stabbed two people near a tram stop in Brno-Bystrc last Saturday, one of whom later died in hospital.
Court spokesperson Petra Láníčková informed the Czech News Agency (ČTK) of the decision. Last Saturday, tens of thousands of people were travelling to the Brno Reservoir in the Bystrc municipal department to watch a fireworks show.
The police have repeatedly called for eyewitnesses to the conflict and those who know what preceded it on the tram to contact them. Láníčková said the court found reason to suspect the accused could flee and remanded him into custody.
“No complaint has been filed against that decision yet, although both the accused and the prosecutor have reserved the right to do so,” the court spokesperson said. Several people, according to previous information from the police, got into a scuffle on Saturday just before 20:00 CET near the Přístaviště tram Stop in Brno-Bystrc.
A man used a knife to injure two others, who were hospitalized. One later died in hospital.
According to police, an eyewitness drew the attention of police to the brawl near the tram stop. “An eyewitness warned a police patrol of a brawl underway near a public transport stop. Officers ran to the scene of the incident, one patrol member called an ambulance, another ascertained a description of the suspect (the perpetrator) and then saw a person fitting that description who was near the traffic island for boarding public transportation. A 37-year-old man was then apprehended and arrested on the spot,” said police spokesperson Pavel Šváb.
A police spokesperson previously said that what will be crucial to determining exactly what role the parties to the conflict played will be the testimonies not just of those involved, but also of eyewitnesses. “For that reason in particular, we are again asking any and all witnesses: If you were an eyewitness (and you haven’t been in contact with police yet) who saw this conflict or who knows what preceded it on the tram, call 158. Until all of the eyewitnesses have been questioned we can’t say anything more,” Šváb said.
The police spokesperson also said detectives are still making every effort to work on clarifying all circumstances of the case. Police have not officially mentioned the citizenship of the foreign national suspected of murder.
The media and social media users have reported that the man is Ukrainian and the deceased was a Romani man. Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková has tweeted regret over the death of the young person in Brno.
Fuková has also called on Romani people to remain calm and not to generalize about the nationality of the perpetrator. “We [Roma] ourselves have long fought against such generalizations,” she tweeted.
The Commissioner said she is familiarizing herself with the security situation for Romani people in Brno and will meet with police representatives, NGOs and local Romani people over the next few days. A demonstration has been convened for Saturday afternoon in Brno in association with the death.
According to news server Romea.cz, the ultra-right has already begun exploiting the incident for their political purposes. Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan (Mayors and Independents – STAN) called on people today to not allow themselves to be manipulated under the influence of their emotions by those who want to exploit the reprehensible action of one individual to stir up an outburst of intolerance against any group in the population.
“The principle of collective guilt is just as reprehensible as the violence itself,” the minister tweeted. He also said police are investigating the man’s death through standard means.
