Czech neo-Nazis get up to 22 years for burning Roma toddler

A Czech court on Wednesday sentenced four Czech neo-Nazis to terms of up to 22 years in prison for an arson attack last year that left a Roma toddler struggling for life with severe burns.

Reuters

"The culprits committed the crimes of attempted murder and property damage," said judge Miloslav Studnicka from the regional court in the eastern city of Ostrava.

David Vaculik, 26, Jaromir Lukes, 26 and Ivo Muller, 25, were sentenced to 22 years in prison. Vaclav Cojocaru, 22, was handed a 20-year sentence.

They were also ordered to pay damages of almost 693,000 euros to a health insurer and to the Roma family.

All four appealed the verdict on the spot.

The four men threw three Molotov cocktails into a house in the eastern Czech town of Vitkov on April 19, 2009, a day before the 120th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth.

Three people were injured in the ensuing fire including two-year-old Natalka Kudrikova, who only left hospital last December after suffering burns on 80 per cent of her body.

"She underwent 14 operations," said Studnicka. The girl had lost three fingers and her life had been repeatedly threatened by post-burn trauma, kidney failures and blood poisoning, he added.

Natalka's parents were also burnt, while five other people sleeping in the house escaped uninjured.

The judge said the crime was motivated by the four men's "membership of extremist groups and movements, related to racial hatred" and by "an effort to show off within these movements" ahead of the Hitler anniversary.

The attack sparked unrest among the Czech Republic's largely impoverished Roma community, which is estimated at between 250,000 and 300,000 people in the ex-communist country of 10.5 million.

In the wake of the attack, Czech authorities decided to beef up the country's fight against the far right.