Man sentenced to life for murder of six Vietnamese demands release; community protests
Viliam Hauser, sentenced to life for a massacre in a Bratislava warehouse in 1994, is once again seeking conditional release. The Vietnamese community has called on the court not to set him free.
Vietnamese community calls for rejection of Hauser's release request
At the end of October, Viliam Hauser, sentenced to life imprisonment, was escorted before a panel of the District Court in Trnava. The proceedings concerned his application for conditional release. The court postponed its verdict to 17 November.
According to Nový Čas, Hauser is serving a sentence for one of the cruelest crimes in modern Slovak history. On the night of 8–9 April 1994, he murdered six people of Vietnamese origin together with Róbert Matt in a warehouse on Stará Vajnorská Road in Bratislava. The victims — three men, two women, one of whom was pregnant, and an eight-month-old girl — were killed for money. The adult perpetrators shot the victims with a submachine gun; the child was suffocated. Matt, then 23 years old, and Hauser, then 24 years old, were sentenced to life imprisonment for this act.
Three organisations addressed an open letter to the court
In connection with Hauser's application, the Vietnamese community living in Slovakia contacted the Trnava court. Three organisations — the Vietnamese Community in Slovakia, the Union of Vietnamese Women in Slovakia, and the Civic Association Vietnamese Roots — addressed an open letter to the panel. They expressed their fundamental opposition to the conditional release of the convict.
"For our community, this is not a closed chapter. The victims were our compatriots, colleagues, neighbours and relatives. The massacre on Stará Vajnorská continues to live in the memory of Vietnamese families in Slovakia and Czechia, and each further request by the convict for release reopens these wounds," the organisations stated in the letter.
Claudia Alner, chairwoman of the Civic Association Vietnamese Roots, explained that the courts had rejected Hauser's previous applications for release, concluding that a positive behavioural prognosis cannot be made regarding the convict and that he has entrenched inclinations towards serious asocial criminal activity.
Community: age and health cannot suffice
The organisations emphasised in their letter that they respect the independence of the court and the convict's right to a fair assessment of his application. However, they ask that the court critically examine whether the conclusions of previous decisions have genuinely and demonstrably changed. According to them, age, health status or long-term sentence completion cannot replace convincing evidence of reform. They also call on the court to take into account the views of the bereaved within the bounds of the law.
The organisations also draw attention to the broader social impact of the decision. "The court's decision in this matter will be perceived far beyond the courtroom walls. It will tell society whether a life sentence for the most serious crimes truly means what it declares, and whether the protection of human life depends on the origin of the victim," they state.
"It will tell the Vietnamese minority whether it can rely on the fact that the Slovak state stands equally firmly on the side of its victims as on the side of victims from the majority society. Release could be perceived as a relativisation of one of the most brutal crimes in the country's history," the organisations added.
Vietnamese have been a recognised minority since 2023
The signatories of the letter also recalled that Vietnamese have lived in Slovakia for more than four decades. In June 2023, the government officially recognised them as the fourteenth national minority.
"Money can be earned again, but human life can never be returned. Anyone capable of murdering a defenceless child for profit has no place among free people," the organisations concluded, calling on the court to reject the application after careful consideration of all legal conditions.
The Trnava court's decision is expected on 17 November.
Source: Nový Čas