Around Slovakia

Pedophile abused 42 boys in five years
13-year-old threatens businessman's life
Bum looks for place to call home


Pedophile abused 42 boys in five years

The arrest of a pedophile for making and distributing videotapes of sexual activities between himself and young boys has shocked this city of 59,000 in western Slovakia.
The illicit business started five years ago, when the man, who police would not identify, was living in Buková, a village near Trnava. There he invited young boys to his house, videotaped his sexual acts with them, and sold the tapes to the flourishing pornographic trade in Austria.
According to some of the boys' testimony to police, Austrians used to join in the sexual activities. The boys also said they willingly engaged in the rites because they got paid for them.
According to police, the man abused 2 boys under 14- years-old in 1993; in 1994, he abused 10 boys that were 15-or 16-years old.
A district court in Trnava sentenced him to 20 months' probation in 1995, but the sentence did little to curb the man's habit. Over the next few months, he moved his business to Trenčín, and in the space of a single year before he was arrested again, the pedophile reportedly abused 30 boys and pumped out 40 videotapes.
No date has been set for the trial.



13-year-old threatens businessman's life

A businessman in Trenčín, a city of 54,000 in central Slovakia, recently endured several death threats to himself and to his family from an unknown perpetrator. Then, the businessman found stuck to his car windshield a note demanding 100,000 Sk instructing him to to bring the money to a busy section downtown.
The businessman contacted the police, and together they prepared a plan to nab the villain.
As instructed, the businessman left a briefcase with fake paper money cut out from newspaper. A few minutes later, the entrepreneur and the police were startled when a 13-year-old boy furtivelyswooped down on the briefcase and grabbed it.
The boy, a seventh grader from a good family in Prievidza, at first denied he was the culprit but later admitted that he made all the threats. He also told police he concocted the ransom scheme, so he could get enough money to buy a 45,000 Sk motorcycle from his friend. There will be no formal case, police said, because the boy is too young to appear in court.



Bum looks for place to call home

A shopkeeper in this village of less than 1,000 near Prievidza in central Slovakia found a big hole in the store's window when she arrived for work on January 5.
She also found littered around the store chocolate bar wrappers, an empty beer bottle and several cigarette butts. Events took another turn when one of the store's employees went to the bathroom but found that the doors were locked on the inside, and an unknown male voice told the employee to leave him alone.
The man came out voluntarily when police arrived at the scene. The man told the officers that he had broken into the shop because he was homeless and hungry and wanted to be arrested, so he would have a place to spend the winter.


Compiled by Richard Lewis from TASR

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