Fifteen years since the repugnant arson attack on a Romani family in Vítkov, Czech Republic, two of the neo-Nazi arsonists have been released while the victim's health problems will be lifelong
Fifteen years ago in the small Moravian town of Vítkov in the Opava district of the Czech Republic, a crime was committed that changed the lives of a Romani family forever and left its mark on Czech society as a whole. In the late night hours of 18 April and early morning hours of 19 April 2009, a group of ultra-right sympathizers attacked house no. 58, where a Romani family was living.
Three masked perpetrators threw Molotov cocktails full of gasoline through a ground-floor window of the house, causing a powerful fire. The arsonists then got back into the car where an accomplice was waiting and fled the scene.
The most tragic result of the arson was that a baby girl, Natálka, suffered burns over almost 80 % of her body and has had to undergo longterm treatment and many operations ever since. At the time of the attack a total of eight people were inside the house.
Natálka was taken to hospital in critical condition and remained there for the next eight months. She lost three fingers and suffered other lifelong health repercussions.
Her mother, Anna Siváková, and her mother’s partner, Pavel Kudrik, escaped the fire with less severe injuries. Police succeeded in apprehending the perpetrators of the racially-motivated crime after four months of investigation.
Detectives were led to the arsonists by a volunteer firefighter from the Opava area who overheard an acquaintance speak on the telephone with one of the perpetrators that fateful day. When the firefighter learned of the tragedy in Vítkov from the media, he informed police of the suspicious conversation.
A dozen extremists were arrested by detectives in mid-August 2009. Four were ultimately charged with racially-motivated attempted murder.
The trial began in May 2010 in Ostrava. The defendants were Václav Cojocaru, Jaromír Lukeš, Ivo Müller and David Vaculík.
According to experts on extremism, all four youths were active neo-Nazis, as was proven by items found during searches of their homes. Vaculík also repeatedly came to court wearing the Thor Steinar clothing brand, which is very popular among neo-Nazis.
The defendants claimed they had had no idea the single-family home was occupied. Allegedly they understood it was being used to store stolen goods.
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Defense attorneys asked the court not to assess the case as attempted murder, but as bodily harm or reckless endangerment. One attorney even indirectly blamed the parents of the burned child for the serious injuries she sustained, alleging they had taken too long to rescue her from the burning room.
The first-instance verdict was handed down on 20 October 2010. “We have concluded that the defendants knew the house was occupied,” the judge said.
The court called their actions a brutal attack and compared it to Kristallnacht, during which Nazis set synagogues and other Jewish targets on fire in November 1938 in Germany. According to the verdict, these men planned the local attack in Moravia because they could not afford to attend a neo-Nazi demonstration in Bohemia and they wanted the arson to be their gesture of participation in that cause.
Lukeš, Müller and Vaculík were sentenced to 22 years in prison. They had all previously been convicted of either promoting Nazism or perpetrating violent crimes.
The fourth convict, Cojocaru, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The court took into consideration that this was his first conviction, that he had not contributed to organizing the attack, and that he joined the others at the last minute.
All of the convicts appealed. The case was heard by the High Court in Olomouc, which reduced Müller’s sentence to 20 years in the spring of 2011.
The court made that decision based on the fact that Müller had confessed and expressed regret for his actions. The court upheld the sentences of the other three convicts, as did the Supreme Court.
In 2014 the Constitutional Court rejected a complaint filed by Lukeš and Vaculík, saying it had found nothing unconstitutional about their cases and that the lower courts had proceeded and ruled correctly. All of the convicts also have to pay several million crowns in compensation.
In January 2023, Anna Siváková told the daily Právo that Cojocaru and Müller send her about CZK 3,000 [EUR 120] per month, while Lukeš sends between CZK 150 – 200 [EUR 6 – 8] and the only one who has never sent any money is Vaculík. Part of the judgment also requires the convicts to pay CZK 7.5 million [EUR 300,000] in reimbursement to the health insurance company for the treatment of Natálka’s burns.
“I can confirm that they are still making regular payments to us for the damages calculated in the court decision,” Ivo Čelechovský, spokesperson for the RBP health insurer, told Novinky.cz in January 2023. In mid-May 2023, Cojocaru and Müller were granted early release after serving two-thirds of their sentences, i.e., 12 years behind bars.
The prosecutor agreed with their applications for early release in both cases. Their attorneys said they had both been working while in prison.
The court placed them on supervised probation for seven years. They also have to keep paying damages.
Lukeš and Vaculík, who were given stricter sentences of 22 years each, remain in prison. The two-thirds mark for their sentences is the equivalent of 14.5 years, so the earliest they will be able to apply for early release would be during the first half of 2024.
