New police team to tackle anti-Roma violence

Police set up a 50-member investigation team to focus on assaults against Roma after a growing number of cases were reported this year, national police official Istvan Hazi told the press on Thursday.

This year, a total of 14 assaults using weapons or firebombs were launched against Roma residents as well as two assaults involving grenades, Hazi said, adding that racial motivation has not been confirmed and that no substantive evidence has emerged, even regarding the last two killings, which took place less than a month apart, despite the offering of significant rewards.

Speaking on commercial television channel ATV on Thursday night, national police chief Jozsef Bencze added rewards for information leading to any of the assaults, even those in which no one had been injured, to the ones offered for finding the murderers.

Commenting remarks made by local police, saying that Tuesday's killings had not been ethnically motivated, Bencze noted that in all cases when the victims of assaults are Roma, the possibility of ethnic motivation cannot and must not be dismissed until there is clear-cut evidence to prove otherwise.

A double murder was committed overnight on Tuesday in Pecs, S Hungary, when a Roma couple was killed by a grenade thrown through their window -- also injuring two of their three young children. Earlier in November, a Roma woman and man died in NE Hungary when shots were fired through their window.

Minority ombudsman Erno Kallai on Wednesday met Roma representatives and said that any murders suspected of being racially motivated would be treated separately by a special investigation team.

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