A district court in Košice on Wednesday acquitted three Roma of charges of false testimony concerning a police raid that took place in the town of Moldava nad Bodvou (Košice region) in 2013, as the prosecutor in the case has decided to drop the charges. While two Roma saw the same charges in this case dropped in May, one other remains accused.
More than 60 police officers took part in the controversial raid eight years ago. A total of six Roma testified that the police brutally beat them up without any reason. A probe by the Interior Ministry's Inspectorate later concluded that the police acted in line with the law, however. The prosecution service then decided to charge the six individuals, who denied any guilt, stating that they viewed the process as unfair. The prosecutor in the case decided to drop the charges against five out of the six accused in March 2021, following a statement made by the Prosecutor-General's Office along with a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg in 2020, which upheld the complaints of two of the Roma and acknowledged that they should receive compensation.
The ECHR is still deciding on the complaints submitted by the rest of the Roma. According to their lawyer Roman Kvasnica, the law-enforcement authorities have been violating his clients' human rights and freedoms from the very beginning of the case. "We won't be content until all six of them are acquitted of charges, so we're not finished yet," he told the media. As for Irena M., the final remaining charged individual, Kvasnica claimed that she cannot read or write, speaks neither Slovak nor Hungarian and does not have a good understanding of what she is actually accused of. Meanwhile, the prosecutor has stated that he does not intend to drop the charges against Irena M., as it can be expected based on the evidence against her that she will be found guilty.
