Czech police errors result in acquittal of neo-Nazis who assaulted Romani men

An appeals court in Hradec Králové has rejected the appeal of state prosecutor Alexandr Pumprla in the case of Romani men who were beaten up in Nový Bydžov last year and has left intact the acquittal handed down by the district court. "The reason was lack of evidence. The blame primarily lies with police, who performed the suspect identification procedure poorly," David Oplatek of the In IUSTITIA organization, told news server Romea.cz.

Oplatek believes the principle of a speedy trial was violated throughout the entire procedure because the justice system left the victims in uncertainty for a long time. "The entire criminal proceedings took a year and a half, during which the district court was unable to deliver its verdicts for almost a year," Oplatek said. The decision of the appeals court has already taken effect.

The district court absolved the alleged assailants of the charges of rioting and defaming a creed, nation, or race. The rioting consisted of beating up two Romani men when the extremists marched through the town after a demonstration by the Workers’ Social Justice Party (DSSS), and the defamation was performed through shouting racist slogans such as "You black gypsy swine".

The DSSS promoters were not found innocent, but were acquitted. Judge Karel Peřina said during his previous explanation of the district court verdict that there was no doubt that the crimes described in the indictment took place, but it had not been proven which defendant(s) committed them.

The assaults

According to the indictment, a small group of assailants attacked three Romani men (one of whom managed to flee) in the center of Nový Bydžov about an hour after the demonstration there ended. The men were beaten in their faces and kicked. One Romani man suffered a head injury and fell into unconsciousness. "They started to swear at us, insulting us, and then they attacked," one of the victims said, adding that the assailants shouted racist curses and threatened to kill them.

"After the demonstration my brother and I were sitting on the town square and then we walked through the park to our car. In Husova street about five people attacked us, two went after me, and then another 10 turned up, so I started to run away," Emil Čonka told the court.

What the police did wrong

The assault on the Romani men occurred even though Nový Bydžov was flooded with police officers who were supposed to prevent violence. That same day, a nonviolent protest blockade of the DSSS extremists’ march also took place. Several police officers also happened to be in the vicinity of the assault. The Romani man who managed to flee told the officers what was happening, but they did not make it to the scene until the assault was over. They arrested a group of suspects several dozens of meters away from the crime scene as they were leaving it.

Police also found a set of brass knuckles, an iron bar and a wooden pole at and near the crime scene. They did not fingerprint any of the objects or perform DNA testing on them even though they took fingerprints and DNA samples from the suspects.

As Judge Peřina said previously, the police performed the suspect identification in an illegal manner. Peřina said the police should have performed the identification in natura, which means the suspect is placed in a lineup with several uninvolved persons of similar appearance. The victim or witness is then asked to choose which of the people in the lineup is the perpetrator. The police did not perform an in natura identification even though all of the suspects were available. It might have been technically demanding to arrange for the other members of the lineup, but that is part of ordinary police obligations and procedures.

The other form of suspect identification involves photographs. By law, police can only perform this kind of recognition when the suspects are unavailable, for example, when they are incommunicado. Police in Nový Bydžov did the suspect identification through photographs alone – and they botched it by showing the victims only photographs of their suspects. The correct procedure would have been similar to an in natura identification: They should have shown the victims many photographs, at least three of which should have been of the suspects. "This was like the 15th edition of a bad detective story," Peřina said.

Criminals and the unemployed

The defendants were neither innocents nor small fish. News server Romea.cz has determined that they include eight unemployed persons, six manual laborers, and one student. Their criminal records are as follows:

• Petr Jakl has been convicted twice before;
• Václav Karel was convicted of a property crime in 2010 and was on probation;
• Jiří Kruncl was convicted once in 1997 and the sentence was expunged;
• Radek Lukašík was convicted twice and was given a suspended sentence in 2010 which is still in effect;
• Richard Novák was convicted three times, most recently in 2010 by the district court in Ústí nad Labem, which sentenced him to prison and put him on probation until July 2011;
• Miroslav Ploch (who still has to face trial in this case) had a previous conviction;
• Josef Páník has been convicted on 10 previous occasions, most recently in March and then July 2011. He too is serving a suspended sentence.

Páník is probably the most interesting of those acquitted. During the hearings in the district court he was either wearing his hair long (past his shoulders), or was wearing a wig. He was articulate, knew exactly what his rights were, and repeatedly insisted that he is not a right-wing extremist. According to the available information, he has been tried at least once before for defamation of a creed, nation or race.