Trial of suspect in the murder of a Romani man in Brno, Czech Republic earlier this year scheduled to begin 15 December
On Friday, 15 December at 9 AM the Regional Court will start hearing the case of the murder of one Romani youth and the injuries caused to two others at the Brno Reservoir earlier this year. The prosecutor has charged a man originally from Ukraine with murder and bodily harm over the incident.
Today the court will hear the indictment and then the testimonies of the defendant and the two injured parties who survived the assault. Since there is interest not just from the media, but from others in attending the hearing, the court is considering issuing tickets for the courtroom, where there are only about 70 seats, court spokesperson Klára Belkovová told the Czech News Agency (ČTK).
In June the case led to tensions between some Romani community members and some Ukrainians in the Czech Republic. The accused foreign national, who is 37, faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted.
News server Romea.cz will report updated information directly from the courthouse by livestream on Friday morning. The accused foreign national, according to the indictment, assaulted and injured three people near a tram stop on 10 June, all of whom were hospitalized.
One victim later died of his injuries in hospital. “At approximately 19:40 in Brno on the asphalt walkway connecting the municipal mass transit stop called Přístaviště with Přístavní Street, during an altercation involving the suspect and the three young men who were harmed, he assaulted them using his own knife,” Hynek Olma, spokesperson for the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Brno, previously described when the indictment was submitted.
According to Olma, the defendant caused fatal injuries to one of the men and injured the other two. The foreign national was taken into custody and then released on his own recognizance on 17 August.
The Brno Municipal Court first decided to release the suspect in July, but the prosecutor complained against that decision. The Regional Court then upheld the first-instance decision in August.
“I am paying attention to this case, and since misunderstandings occurred previously regarding the steps which have been taken to investigate it, I am now posting this criminal proceedings guide,” the Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs, Lucie Fuková, posted to Facebook with several graphics explaining the process. The June incident in Brno boosted anti-Ukrainian sentiment among a smaller segment of the Romani community.
There was a great deal of disinformation posted to social media alleging that other Romani people had also been assaulted by Ukrainians, sparking emotions, and the police refuted those claims. Many Romani figures condemned the anti-Ukrainian assemblies that were convened by some community members, warned against applying collective guilt, and called on people to maintain their equilibrium and to verify reports before sharing them.
Both Fuková and Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Klára Šimáčková Laurenčíková got involved in resolving the situation. A newly-released 10-point guide to crisis communications is now available to aid municipal departments and municipalities with calming tensions or unrest.
The instructions on how to inform the public about such situations were created by an expert group on preventing and calming prejudice-based violence. That group was created over the summer in response to some Romani community members organizing anti-Ukrainian actions.
