Perpetrators of Racially Motivated Arson Sentenced

Last October I wrote about the trial of four Czech arsonists whose Molotov cocktail attack set fire to a house inhabited by a nine-member Roma family, injuring three and severely burning a two-year-old girl over 80% of her body.

The arsonists appealed the verdict for their April 2009 attack, saying they had not realized the house was occupied and that they had no intention of murdering anyone. The court heard their appeals and doled out the perpetrators' sentences today.

As the news service Romea.cz reports:

Today the High Court in (the Czech city of) Olomouc reduced the sentence handed down to defendant Ivo Müller for the 2009 commission of an arson attack on a Roma home in Vítkov from 22 to 20 years. The extraordinary sentences previously handed down by the Ostrava Regional Court of between 20 and 22 years for the other three extremists involved in the arson were upheld on appeal.

David Vaculík and Jaromír Lukeš byli were sentenced to 22 years in prison, while Václav Cojocaru received a 20-year sentence. All four defendants were sentenced for multiple counts of racially motivated attempted murder and for destruction of property.