Conditions for all. The Supreme Court put an end to the village lynching in Klatovsk

Zdeněk Hadrava (48), Ladislav Šilhavý (49), Pavel Kroupa (38) and Martin Vávra (44) decided to take revenge for the fact that a man from the village inexplicably attacked and brutally beat a twelve-year-old boy, the son of one of them. They broke into the man’s house, where he lives with his partner, and punches, kicks, and threats flew. A chainsaw was supposed to be involved in the action, according to the indictment, but that was not proven, as were some other items. While the avengers were punished, the man who beat the child escaped without any punishment in court.

More than five years have passed since the beginning of the conflict. On Easter 2019, in a small village in the Klatovsk region, a 12-year-old schoolboy together with his friends, as part of Easter traditions, went to the village and stopped at the house of Václav B., whose name cannot be disclosed by law. The man reacted inexplicably. He attacked the boy, threw him to the ground and then punched him in the face at least ten times while holding his hair with his other hand. He left it only when he saw a neighbor who went to help a beaten and injured child.

A few days later, the aforementioned four men from the village dealt with him. The raid took place on May 17, 2019 after two o’clock in the morning after a birthday party for one of the party members. When Václav B. opened the door for them after knocking, they burst in. “They knocked him to the ground and repeatedly Hadrava and Šilhavy they hit their fists in the face and demanded that he and Michaela A. (34) withdraw or amend their statement, which they filed in the criminal proceedings, where they were supposed to make derogatory comments about Hadrava and Šilhavé’s minor children and thus tarnish their reputation. Hadrava said that if he didn’t do so, he would kill them both,” state attorney Věra Brázdová said in the indictment.

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The attackers were also supposed to attack Michaela A. The plaintiff added that Kroupa also joined in, who also repeatedly punched Václav B. and kicked him several times. According to the indictment, Hadrava then threatened to cut off the man’s head and put a chainsaw to his neck. “Then he asked Šilhavé, Vávra and Kroupa to step on the injured person’s head so that the hen…looks,” said Brázdová. She added that they then dragged the lifeless victim out of the house, where the police patrol found him. He suffered various injuries. “For both victims, it developed as a result of the actions of the defendants post-traumatic stress disorder,” concluded Brázdová in the indictment, stating that later Hadrava threatened Michael A. in the village that if she testified to the police about his son, he would kill her.

According to the four friends, however, everything happened somewhat differently than stated in the indictment. And the Regional Court in Pilsen, after almost a year of hearing the case, when a number of witnesses were heard, really came to the conclusion that it is possible to punish the defendants only for part of the acts mentioned in the indictment. Hadrav and Šilhavy, who were demonstrably much more active during the conflict, were unanimously sentenced by the panel headed by judge Tomáš Bouček to three years, while Vávr and Kroupa were sentenced to two years. All had their sentences suspended for a probationary period of two years.

Judge Bouček stated in his reasoning that the victim’s statement was not credible. She even lied about Hadrava threatening her at the garbage cans, because according to witnesses, he was not in the village at all at that time. It was also not possible to prove that they put a chainsaw and other things to Václav B.’s neck, e.g. that Michaela A. suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that, among other things, also because she did not cooperate with the court.

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The defendants and the public prosecutor appealed, so the High Court in Prague had the final say. As his spokesman Vít Tomáš confirmed to Deník, the Court of Appeal overturned the Pilsen verdict in the scope of the verdicts on punishment and verdicts on compensation for damage and non-pecuniary damage to the victims, and decided again. He made the punishments tougher for the accused. All of them now have the same three-year sentences, suspended for different lengths of probation. Hadrava for five years, Šilhavy for four years, Kroupa for 3.5 years and Vávra for three years. Together, they also have to pay the victim an amount exceeding 600,000 crowns. The verdict is final.

While the avengers were punished, Václav B. did not show any remorse for the brutal attack. Although an indictment was filed against him at the Klatov court, he escaped without punishment, as his criminal prosecution was suspended conditionally.