4 jailed for killing Roma families in Hungary
Print Edition
A Hungarian court jailed four neo-Nazis yesterday for killing Roma families in a spree of racist violence in 2008 and 2009 which shocked the country and led to accusations that police had failed to protect an historically persecuted minority.
The gang killed six Roma and wounded several others in carefully planned attacks across the country over 13 months, creating a climate of fear for members of Hungary’s largest ethnic minority. Roma, who make up about 7 percent of the population of 10 million, face widespread discrimination and often live in dire poverty.
Three men were jailed for life without parole and a fourth for 13 years, also without parole. The ruling can be appealed.
Judge Laszlo Miszori said the perpetrators saw themselves as vigilantes imposing “an ethnic-type solution” in revenge for crimes committed by Roma.
“To carry out their plans first they bought arms, then began to ‘reinstall order,’ meaning armed attacks in places where Roma had committed crimes against Hungarians,” the judge said.
In one of the attacks, several men set fire to a house at the edge of the dusty village of Tatarszentgyorgy, near a forest 30 minutes from Budapest, late at night on February 22, 2009.
When the inhabitants fled the burning building, the attackers shot dead Robert Csorba, a 29-year-old Roma man, and his four-year-old son. A girl was also seriously wounded.
Human Resources Minister Zoltan Balog, who is responsible for Roma inclusion, said the verdict “strengthens my belief that no perpetrators of racist crimes can escape the law in Hungary, and especially savage murderers pay a worthy penalty for their deeds.”
“This is not a question of minority or majority: this is a question of human dignity,” he said in a statement.
Roma have lived in Hungary for centuries. The collapse of heavy industry in 1989 hit the Roma hard. Unemployment is widespread, generations of Roma have grown up poor and illiterate, and some have resorted to petty crime to make ends meet.
Some Hungarians have complained that Roma live on welfare, engage in crime and have more children than they can afford.
Hostility towards them among many other Hungarians has helped fuel the rise of the far-right Jobbik party, which vilifies the Roma openly and won 17 percent of votes for parliament in 2010, becoming the third biggest party.
In his ruling, the judge said two of the killers had attended a swearing-in ceremony of a nationalist vigilante group set up by the Hungarian Guard, but had decided to embark on their own plans for attacks after concluding the group was ineffectual.
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