Slovak court grants early release to vigilante who murdered three Roma at their home, prosecutor complains
The independent daily newspaper Nový čas reports that Milan Juhász, the main who shot dead three Romani people in Hurbanovo, Slovakia seven years ago, remains in custody for the time being. The District Court in Trenčín decided yesterday to grant him parole, but the prosecutor filed a motion against the decision.
The Regional Court will decide next whether the convict will be released. Diana Dočolomanská, a psychologist who assessed Juhász, told the daily that: “He is an absolutely integrated personality who deeply regrets his actions and there is no assumption that he might repeat them.”
Juhász made the following statement: “I have done my best to live honestly, to lead a proper life. My family is waiting for me, I would like to help raise my grandchildren because the young people don’t have enough time for it. I see that they miss me and I miss them too. I will do my best to live a normal life. What happened is a catastrophe. I regret it very much, if I could take it back, I would never have done it.”
He committed the triple murder using an unlicensed weapon, causing the deaths of a 44-year-old man, the man’s 19-year-old son and his 24-year-old son-in-law. Another son of the 44-year-old survived a gunshot to the lungs and his wife survived a gunshot to her leg.
The court sent Juhász to a maximum-security prison for nine years. He was also instructed to undergo protective custodial psychiatric treatment and protective supervision for three years.
He requested parole after serving three-quarters of his sentence. According to the chair of the parole board, he has fulfilled the conditions for release.
The prosecutor reminded the court of the gravity of the crimes of murder and illegal weapons possession in his complaint against the decision to grant parole. The surviving relatives of the victims of the massacre brought the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which agreed at the end of 2018 that their rights had been violated.
The surviving relatives had sued the Slovak Republic for insufficiently investigating the perpetrator’s possible racial motivation. Despite the express request of the injured victims, the first-instance court refused to consider a possible racial motivation for the crime, so they complained to the Constitutional Court.
When the Constitutional Court ruled that their rights had not been violated by that decision, the injured parties turned to Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights agreed with them and awarded them compensation in the amount of EUR 50 000.
