Czech court to rule on early release for another perpetrator of 2009 racially-motivated arson on 18 September
This month the District Court in Karviná will review the request for early release submitted by Jaromír Lukeš, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the racially-motivated arson attack he committed against a Romani family in Vítkov, Czech Republic in 2009. He has spent more than 15 years in prison.
The court has received the psychological assessment of Lukeš that was commissioned in May. Judge Lucie Blahutová informed the Czech News Agency (ČTK) of the news.
Of the four men convicted of committing the attack on the Romani family, two were granted early release last year. Lukeš and perpetrator David Vaculík are still serving their sentences.
“We already have the psychological assessment. The hearing will continue on 18 September at 08:30,” Blahutová said.
If the court does not permit motions to submit further evidence in the case during that hearing, it should make its decision that same day. During the May hearing, Lukeš expressed regret for his actions.
Representatives of the prison and the probation and mediation service supported his request for early release. In their view, his resocialization is possible.
Lukeš was said to be a model prisoner. Should he be granted early release, he would have to fulfill several conditions, according to the probation and mediation service.
For example, the convicted arsonist would not be allowed to enter Budišov nad Budišovkou in the Opava district, where the Romani family whom he attacked are living, including Natálka, the girl who was most severely harmed by his actions. He also would not be permitted to contact her.
Any such contact would only be allowed through the probation and mediation service. Lukeš, who was an active member of the neo-Nazi scene in the Opava district, was an initiator of the attack.
According to the verdict, it was Lukeš who picked the house in Vítkov that the small group of ultra-right sympathizers attacked on 18 April 2009 just before midnight. Three masked perpetrators threw one Molotov cocktail each through the ground-floor windows of the house.
The arsonists then fled the scene in a car driven by an accomplice. The powerful blaze they set almost cost the life of Natálka, who was not even two years old at the time, and physically injured her mother and father.
There were eight people in the house at the time of the attack. Little Natálka was injured the worst, suffering burns over almost 80 % of her body.
The infant was transported to the hospital in critical condition and released by her doctors eight months later. She lost three fingers and has other health repercussions which she will live with for the rest of her life, repeatedly undergoing operations.
Her mother, Anna Siváková, and her father, Pavel Kudrik, managed to escape the burning house with less serious physical injuries. Siváková disagrees with an early release for Lukeš.
“We lost our property, our health and our future. We could not believe it when the first two arsonists were released. [Lukeš] is paying what he owes us in small amounts. It took him more than 10 years to send us a letter of apology,” she said in a statement that was read into the record by the judge.
Markus Pape, who is representing Kudrik, said that Natálka’s father believes Lukeš has not met the necessary terms of an early release. “He isn’t paying damages,” he said.
The convicted arsonists are meant to pay more than CZK 9 million [EUR 360,000] to Natálka and another approximately CZK 7 million [EUR 280,000] to her health insurance company. The District Court in Šumperk granted early release in May 2023 to the first two convicted arsonists to request it, Václav Cojocaru and Ivo Müller.
The two perpetrators had served two-thirds of their sentences for multiple counts of attempted racially-motivated murder.
