The Czech police Friday officially confirmed that they have accused a woman and her underage son of an attempted murder in connection with an arson attack on a house inhabited by Romanies in the Bedriska neighbourhood of Ostrava. Both the mother and the son, who live next to the attacked house, have been taken into custody, the police said, adding that the attack was motivated by neighbourly disputes. The woman faces up to life sentence, the son five to ten years in prison, if found guilty, the police said. "We have not proved a racial motive, and I think we will not in the future either," state attorney Brigita Bilikova said. She said the police have enough proofs to qualify the act as an attempted murder, adding that the accused persons were well aware of the consequences of their conduct. The arsonists attacked the house in a Romany settlement in the night of Sunday, March 14. They threw a Molotov cocktail through a window into a child room in which a 13-year-old girl was sleeping. The bottle did not break fortunately and the ether it contained did not start to burn. The girl, who was woken by the sound of the broken window, managed to extinguish a piece of carpet that caught fire from the wick. One year ago arsonists attacked the house of a Romany family in Vitkov, north Moravia. They threw three Molotov cocktails into the house. Three people were injured in the subsequent fire. The most severely injured girl Natalka, then aged two years, suffered third-degree burns to 80 percent of the body. She has survived, but she has undergone many operations and more are ahead of her. The attackers, four rightist extremists, have been ascertained and will go on trial on May 11.
Prague Monitor
