Child abuser conditionally released from jail

Pardubice, East Bohemia, Feb 8 (CTK) - Barbora Skrlova, who was sentenced to five years in prison in a closely watched child maltreatment case, was released on parole with a seven-year probationary period, the Pardubice Regional Court ruled yesterday, Ales Korejtko, from the court, told CTK yesterday.

The court also decided on her supervision, he added.

The Regional Court upheld the previous verdict on Skrlova's parole issued by a district court last November. The state attorney filed a complaint against it, and this is why a higher-level court had to deal with the case.

Skrlova was convicted in October 2008 along with other perpetrators who maltreated two underage boys. The motives of their acts have never been fully clarified.

Skrlova drew high media and public attention since she had passed herself off as an underage 13-year-old girl in the Czech Republic and later as a 12-year-old maltreated boy after she escaped to Norway.

The Salamoun civic association vouched for Skrlova's re-education and promised to secure housing and financial aid to her.

Skrlova asked for her release on parole, via Salamoun, in mid-May, 2011, but the district court in Havlickuv Brod, east Bohemia, turned down her request.

However, the appeals court challenged the verdict saying it had shortcomings and formal mistakes and it ordered the district court to complete the evidence, primarily by an expert opinion to assess Skrlova's chance of resocialisation.

In October 2008, the Regional Court in Brno issued the verdict in one of the most closely watched criminal cases in the past years, dubbed "the Kurim case" after a town in South Moravia where the maltreated boys were uncovered.

The court sent Klara Mauerova, mother of the two tortured boys, to prison for nine years and her sister Katerina was given ten years for a brutal maltreatment of the children.

Jan Skrla, Barbora's brother, and Hana Basova were sentenced to seven years in prison each. Jan Turek and Skrlova were given a five-year sentence each. Skrla, Buresova and Turek worked in the Paprsek children's free time centre in Brno headed by Katerina Mauerova.

The High Court in Olomouc, north Moravia, and the Supreme Court later upheld the verdicts.

Speculations emerged that the culprits might be members of a sect. However, the exact reasons for the boys' maltreatment have never been clearly explained.