Cop is jailed over beating death

Three policemen and a neighbor have been sentenced over their involvement in last year's brutal attack on a Vietnamese man in Brno, in a case that has renewed questions over the Vietnamese community's status in the Czech Republic.

Huang Son Lam, 43, died of internal injuries while being transferred to the hospital from a police holding cell after the incident in January 2009.

At the Regional Court in Brno, policeman Josef Srnský was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment and banned from working in the security forces for seven years.

Huang's former neighbor Kateřina Slavíčková, who was convicted of taking part in the beating, was given two and a half years in jail.

The other two policemen, who witnessed the attack without intervening, were both given three-year suspended sentences with five years' probation. They were banned from working in the security forces for five years.

During the case, the defendants pleaded not guilty and claimed the attack did not even occur. All have now said they will appeal.

Prosecutors said they would also consider appealing over the court's failure to establish a link between the assault and Huang's death. A lawyer for Huang's family also told reporters the family would now seek millions of crowns in compensation. 

The attack ensued as Srnský led a three-member police patrol that was called to Huang's flat after an anonymous call reported that a Vietnamese man under the influence of drugs had demolished his landlady's apartment.

Accounts differed over the exact nature of the raid, but the court found that Srnský and Slavíčková had beaten Huang while the two other officers stood alongside.

Arrested after the assault and taken to a police cell, Huang complained of health problems before dying on his way to hospital.

Judge Jaroslava Bartošová said Srnský had assessed the situation wrongly and used excessive force against the man.

The judge said Huang could have survived the attack if police had announced the use of coercive means during his arrest, because a required medical check would have revealed Huang's internal wounds.

Dagmar Bednarčíková, a spokeswoman for the Police Presidium, did not respond to questions from The Prague Post about the case, saying it would not be appropriate for the force to make any comment on a court decision.

Some members of the local Vietnamese community were present at the court Aug. 31 to hear the verdict on the incident that caused indignation within the community, the Czech News Agency reported.

Cindy Lam, an IT consultant who has lived in Prague since 2006, said she did not know if the case consisted of discrimination or was simply a "misdeed," but she admitted to The Prague Post that she saw the Vietnamese community as being "not integrated in Czech society."

Communities apart

There are more than 60,000 Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic according to the Czech Statistical Office.

Lam said the Czech Vietnamese community is nothing like its counterparts in the United States, Canada or Australia, where members work in many different professions and some do not even speak Vietnamese.

"Here most Vietnamese operate potraviny [mini-supermarkets] and textile shops that you see everywhere," Lam said. "The others whom we don't see are working in some factory. ? That's about it. That's what we do."

She said that intercultural relations suffered from the fact that, because many Vietnamese work such long hours, "there isn't time to socialize and to learn about the Czechs."

Lam said that while Vietnamese children attending school here may fare better, the fact that many young people she knew had strong fluency in Vietnamese suggested they spent a lot of time in "isolation."

Lam said native Czechs also had to take their share of the blame.

"The Czechs are reserved, closed and not welcoming to foreigners. ? And if they are open to foreigners, these foreigners are from richer, Western countries," Lam said.

Last year, a Czech-language novel depicting discrimination suffered by the Vietnamese community here, White Horse, Yellow Dragon, was well-received by readers and critics, even receiving a literary prize. While credited to Pham Thi Lan, the book was later revealed to have been written pseudonymously by Czech writer Jan Cempírek.

- Filip Šenk contributed to this report.

Bill Lehane can be reached at
blehane@praguepost.com