HLINNÉ
Young man sees Jesus Christ's face
The face of Jesus Christ allegedly appeared on August 17 on the wall of a house in this eastern Slovak village of 1,450. The first to see the apparition was a 17-year old Romany, who explained his discovery: "First I felt the warmth and then I saw His face. Although I do not go to church, I immediately knew it was Him."
As soon as news of the encounter spread in the Romany community, hundreds of Romanies from Hlinné and surrounding villages began to cluster around the house, waiting for another sighting to occur.
Leading town representatives, meanwhile, tried to stay out of the matter. The mayor's office refused comment on the alleged incident, and the local Greek Orthodox priest refused to come, saying he was afraid he would be excommunicated from the church, according to one of the Romanies.
HANDLOVÁ
Skinhead gets 11.5 years for murder
The regional district court in Trenčín, a town of 58,000 in western Slovakia, sentenced a young skinhead to an 11.5-year prison term for murdering a Romany man on December 22, 1996. The incident occurred in Handlová, where the culprit saw two Romany men, a son and a father, walking down the street around 4:00 a.m.. According to an eyewitness, the skinhead whipped out a "butterfly" knife with a 10 cm (4.3 inch) long blade, and stabbed the father twice, piercing his heart and lungs.
The man died immediately. When the younger Romany tried to protect his father, the assailant stabbed him in the stomach. The incident caused an uproar among the Romanies in Handlová and Prievidza, also because the twin mining cities have a large skinhead community and a long history of conflict has existed between the two groups.
BANSKÁ BYSTRICA
Hand-grenade kills four and injures a child
An August 9 blast of a hand-grenade in a downtown apartment in this city of 85,000 in central Slovakia killed two children and two adults. The police reported that at the time of the explosion, seven people were in the apartment. The two boys, 11 and 6 years old, their father and uncle died in the living room after the elder of the boys presumably pulled the grenade's pin.
The wives were in the kitchen at the time of the explosion. The miracle survivor is a 10-year old boy who has about 20 to 30 pieces of shrapnel in his brain, lungs, and left eye.
The boy was found unconscious in the apartment by the police and transferred to the Roosevelt Hospital in Banská Bystrica.
His condition is still serious. The police, still investigating the source of the weapon, deny rumors that someone tried to kill the father because of his job at a security firm, reasoning that the pin was found inside the apartment.
Compiled by Andrea Lörinczová from press reports.
