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Soldiers Who Beat Up Young Australian-Czech Man Still in the Army
South Bohemian criminologists investigate a group of three professional soldiers of the Tabor based Brigade accused of several crimes. The accused are nevertheless still left at liberty.
On the night of 25th-26th April three servicemen from a mechanized battallion of the Brigade of Fast Deployment Forces brutally bashed and cut a young man. Furthemore, they kidnapped him and under death threats they forced him to confess he was a drug and firearms dealer..
"Three accused men joined a private party in a Drazice restaurant near Tabor to which they were not invited though," said the spokesperson for South Bohemian Police CR, Jana Kamenikova.
"One of them behaved provocatively and was inciting conflicts."
A young man from the birthday party group intervened and in a peaceful manner tried to calm him down.
"He thought he would show them out and talk them out of such a behaviour," Kamenikova continues. But the whole incident almost ended with murder.
The thing is that when outside of the restaurant, the soldiers attacked him, and then they took him tens of kilometres past Drazice to a deep forest. A young man still managed to send an SMS to his friends from the boot of a car he was forced into.
With a knife on his throat
In the forest soldiers then brutally bashed him and cut him on the throat. With beatings they wanted to get him to confess that he deals in guns and drugs.
Then they took him to a petrol station in Milevsko where they called local town Police to come and arrest him..
Local policemen at first presumed the injured young man who was in a state of shock was the guilty one and they took the words of those three drunk soldiers for granted.
Only after Tabor Police started to investigate, the truth came out. "The detained soldiers were accused of committing several crimes," says Tabor Police spokesperson, Miroslav Doubek. Crimes include malicious bodily harm, deprivation of liberty and extortion. One of them also comitted a menace while driving his vehicle under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
The three men, servicemen of the Elite Corps of the Czech republic Army, with superior strenght and combat training who attacked the unarmed young man are being prosecuted at large.
"There is no reason for them to be held in custody," says Tabor district prosecuting attorney, Alena Peskova.
This would be considered only in case the ravishers could escape or hide, or if they could influence the witnesses or continue in their criminal activity. Three soldiers therefore keep going to work.
"Three servicemen from a mechanized battallion of the Brigade of fast deployment forces are in disposition, which means off duty," explains Jan Pejsek, Czech Army press officer in charge.
"It means that they go to work but they don't perform their usual duties. They do what their commander tells them to do. At the same time they are on half their normal salary. They will stay off duty until the investigation is finished."
The Daily couldn't get any statement from the army unit superiors. "Commander is attending military exercises in Boletice and his staff officers as well. They would only be available on Friday," said an army unit serviceman on Monday.
Failure to react.
According to the victim's relative whose name is known to the Daily, the attitude of the Tabor military unit is extremely inappropriate.
"Nobody from the unit command have shown any interest in what their three accused servicemen have inflicted on the victim, nor have they expressed any moral obligation for the victim," says a victim's family member.
"Soldiers are being investigated at large which, after the kidnapping, murder attempt and brutal beating is absolutely unthinkable."