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R 051342Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRATISLAVA
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INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRATISLAVA 000243 
 
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E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV LO
SUBJECT: KOSICE TORTURE CASE: INVESTIGATION CONTINUES 
 
REF: A. BRATISLAVA 163 
     ¶B. BRATISLAVA 182 
 
¶1. Summary: We met recently with the Slovak Police and the 
General Prosecutor's Office for an official update on the 
police actions in response to the flagrant human rights 
abuses by the Kosice police involved in the torture of six 
Roma children in March.  According to the police, the six 
culpable policemen have all been fired, and the General 
Prosecutor's office is still collecting evidence for their 
criminal prosecution.  Human rights activists remain 
skeptical of the police efforts. End summary. 
 
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Prosecution of Police 
--------------------- 
 
¶2. On June 2, we met with Josef Centes, Deputy Director of 
the Criminal Law section of the General Prosecutor's Office, 
who conveyed the importance the General Prosecutor places on 
a thorough investigation of this case.  He said a special 
police unit from Banska Bystrica is now collecting evidence 
against the six accused policemen.  Centes said he believes 
the unit from Banska Bystrica will operate with greater 
impartiality, especially with witness interrogation (Banska 
Bystrica is approximately 200 km from Kosice).  Centes also 
said that it is possible that even more perpetrators will be 
charged in the future. 
 
¶3. On May 14, the First Vice President of the Police Corps, 
Michal Kopcik, had given us an overview of police actions in 
response to the Kosice torture case (reftels).  Kopcik said 
that he was quite aware of the international community's 
interest in the case, and said he would provide us with the 
same update that was given to the UN Human Rights Council 
during Slovakia's Universal Periodic Review.  Kopcik said 
that as soon as the police leadership learned of the case on 
April 7, nine policeman were immediately suspended from duty 
and deprived of their rank.  On April 8, national Police 
Chief Packa flew from Bratislava to Kosice to personally 
investigate the situation and condemn the event as an 
isolated incident of misconduct.  On April 14, seven 
policemen were charged with misuse of power, blackmail and 
conspiracy; six were fired from the police.  Kopcik also said 
that they are investigating an additional four higher-ranking 
officers' involvement, including the Deputy Director of the 
Kosice District. 
 
¶4. Kopcik said that the entire investigation was carried out 
by the Ministry of Interior's internal affairs unit. Once the 
seven policemen were charged on April 14, the case was 
transferred to the Prosecutor General's office. Under Slovak 
law, the charged persons have three days to appeal the 
charges.  The seven policemen filed an appeal with the 
General Prosecution, and the prosecutorial investigation was 
temporarily stopped.  But those appeals were dismissed by the 
General Prosecutors office shortly after we met with the 
police. 
 
------------------------------ 
Preliminary Prevention Efforts 
------------------------------ 
 
¶5. According to Kopcik, national Police Chief Packa has 
analyzed why this event occurred and developed several ideas 
regarding ways the police can work to prevent future abuse. 
Kopcik said Packa plans to require psychological tests to 
detect aggression and sensitivity before police officers are 
hired, and then again every five years.  Police training will 
be reviewed and updated to include more emphasis on working 
with minority populations, as well as respect for human 
rights, and supervisors will be required to evaluate their 
subordinates on respect for human rights. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
Roma Criminality Exasperates Experienced Police 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶6. Kopcik also pointed out that the Roma victims were part of 
a gang, and three of the six had multiple instances of 
criminal activity on their records.  Kopcik said that the 
Slovak police have 1,500 police officers who are considered 
to be Roma experts, and noted that the Slovaks have trained 
Scottish police officers from Glasgow who are struggling with 
criminality among their small but growing Roma population. 
Kopcik scoffed at NGO attempts to devalue the work of the 
entire police force due to this incident, and said "this is 
not a systemic failure, but a short circuit of police who had 
before done a good job." The six police officers who have 
been fired each had between ten and twenty years of 
 
BRATISLAVA 00000243  002 OF 002 
 
 
experience. 
 
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Activists Doubt Police will Change 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶7. Sarlota Pufflerova, Director of the Citizens and Democracy 
NGO, spearheaded an NGO campaign to call for the resignation 
of Minister of Interior Robert Kalinak, Police Corps 
President Jan Packa, and Kosice Regional Police Director 
Juraj Bulkus.  The public petition, which received the 
support of over 30 NGOs and 400 individuals, said that "the 
circumstances of the case clearly imply that the perpetrators 
did not consider their conduct as being in conflict with 
basic legal and moral principles," which is "another proof 
that serious shortcomings exist that...cannot be removed 
merely by recalling the police officers involved." Pufflerova 
said that there has been no governmental reaction to the 
petition, and that she has thus sent it to the Council of 
Europe's Commission for the Prevention of Torture. 
 
¶8. Pufflerova has worked for several years on human rights 
training curriculum for the Slovak police.  With financial 
support from the local British Embassy, she developed a pilot 
project for educating police who work in Roma communities, 
which trained 20 police officers from 2004-2007.  In general, 
Pufflerova lamented the police structure, which provides 
little continuity and makes it very difficult to implement 
long-term systematic change.  Pufflerova said that from her 
perspective, the so-called Roma experts have often only 
attended a day-long lecture on human rights with no 
interactive training. 
 
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Comment 
------- 
 
¶9. We continue to follow the criminal case and express our 
interest in the investigation and prosecution with the 
highest levels of the Government.  Since the initial media 
frenzy in early April, there has been very little press 
coverage of the follow-up to Slovakia's torture scandal.  We 
were encouraged that after a disappointing meeting with 
Kopcik, in which he indicated the case was "out of his hands" 
and temporarily stalled at the General Prosecutor's office, 
the defendant's appeals were dismissed and the prosecutorial 
investigation re-energized by the time we met with Centes. 
Unfortunately, this case has not lead to government-NGO 
dialogue on reduction of criminality and respect for human 
rights, but instead appears to have widened the civil 
society-government divide. 
EDDINS