Slovenian Roma sue police for not providing protection

10 April 2001

After a Romani man was killed during a police action aimed at arresting persons who had made threats to his life, the family filed charges against the police, believing that the death could have been avoided if the police had acted adequately and in time. According to ERRC field research, Mr Rajko Hudorovič, a 29-year-old Romani man from the settlement Kerinov grm near Krško, was threatened with murder by some other Romani persons from the nearby village of Šentjernej during 1998. He informed police about the threats, and agreed with them to ambush the other group. In agreement with the police, on June 4, 1998, Mr Hudorovič went to visit his relatives in the Gazice village, in the neighbouring Brežice municipality, and invited the group that threatened him to come there, in order to have a meeting and solve the dispute. The police waited at the entry to the village, but — reportedly contradictory to the initial agreement with Mr Hudorovič — the police let the attackers into the village, and the attackers shot Mr Hudorovič to death. The attackers were caught outside the village by police soon after the killing took place.

The widow and brother-in-law of Mr Hudorovič filed separate compensation claims against the police of Krško with the county court in Krško, on an unspecified date in 1998. The main hearing in the case finally took place on March 15, 2001. According to the Slovene daily newspaper Sava Glas of March 21, 2001, statements of the police officers who testified during previous hearings were contradicted by the testimony of a retired policeman, who stated that the Romani man did indeed ask police for protection. One day before interviewing the family of late Mr Hudorovič, the ERRC spoke with an official of the Krško police; the officer, who refused to identify himself, “could not recall any complaints by Roma about police behaviour in the last five years.” Ruling in the case was pending as of April 25, 2001.

(ERRC, Sava Glas)