Far-right patrols must abide by law, warns Police President

Independent patrols created by far-right groups are allowed to patrol trains and so-called trouble areas however they must abide by the law. This was stated by Police President Tibor Gašpar at a press conference on Tuesday. If members of the newly elected far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) want to prevent a crime from happening, they can take action like any other Slovak citizen without being held criminally liable. However, if they take actions or use means reserved by law for police officers only, they could face prosecution, he added. He was speaking in response to ĽSNS chairman Marian Kotleba, who announced on April 11 at a Zvolen train station that ĽSNS will despatch its own uniformed patrols on trains in order to protect passengers. The measure was triggered by an incident on April 7, when a 21-year-old woman was physically attacked by a young man from a Roma settlement. The attacker asked the woman to give him one euro and when she refused to oblige, he subsequently choked the victim with a rope, hit her head against a window and punched her until she surrendered her wallet and mobile phone. Calling the episode "a brutal attack by a Gypsy extremist on a young girl", ĽSNS announced it would despatch three-member patrols to trains, the first of which is to be commanded by newly-elected MP Peter Krupa, who recently made headlines by arriving to a parliamentary session armed with a pistol. "Every citizen of this country can prevent a crime from happening and may offer help to another citizen until the arrival of police. Even if they formally committed a crime in the process, they wouldn't be held criminally liable", said Gaspar, who added that if someone restricts personal freedom of others wantonly and without justification of stopping a crime, however, they would face prosecution. Regarding the new, far-right patrols, there are three rail lines involved and all pass through the Banská Bystrica region, where Marian Kotleba is also the regional governor and the headquarters of the movement and its 14 MPs are based.