“Something needs to change” – Croatian assault survivor speaks out

The survivor of a deadly assault that killed his friend in Clondalkin on Easter Sunday has spoken out about the incident.

In an interview with RTÉ, Croatian man David Druzinec recalled the events that led to him being seriously injured and his childhood friend, Josip Strok, being killed.

Druzinec said that he and Strok were set upon by a group of Irish men after getting off the number 13 bus on March 30th, and Druzinec asserts that they were set upon because they were “not speaking English.”

Druzinec recalls having a conversation with Strok in Croatian in a local Tesco when a group of young Irish males interrupted their conversation.

“I don’t remember a lot of things, but I know that it started because they started telling us that ‘you disrespect our country,” and ‘you need to speak English, ‘which language are you speaking?’”

He maintains them speaking in a language other than English is “the only reason why everything started.”

At this point, Gardaí believe the Croatian men were tracked on the 13 bus.

After disembarking from the bus, the two men were assaulted with what Druzinec believes to be a baseball bat or a similar weapon.

“They came from behind, hit me first with a baseball bat, something bad, I don’t know what. I fell down, unconscious. After a few minutes, I managed to stand up and wake up,” he recalled.

“I saw what he was doing to Josip. I wanted to go to help to him and got hit four more times and was done. The last I remember from that moment was seeing the ambulance lights coming.

Druzinec says he has “limited” recollection of the events and was told by doctors that they were “quite surprised I survived.”

Druzinec was left with seven bone fractures, as well as injuries to the skull, nose, eyebrows and ribs.

After being discharged from hospital, he attempted to retrace his steps with Gardaí, and he said that the Gardaí were reluctant to investigate the assault as a hate crime.

He insisted that the crime was not drug or theft-related.

“If they wanted to take money from us, we would have wallets missing, we would have money missing but we didn’t,” he told RTÉ.

He believes that the initial Garda investigation thought that the pair were involved with drugs and investigating the crime as a hate crime did not come into clearer focus until after the fact.

After having his phone taken from him for reasons related to the investigation, his phone was returned to him after two days; at that stage, Gardaí then started to investigate the assault as a hate crime.

“Me and Josip never took any drugs in our life. That was not a problem. I didn’t borrow money because I worked really hard and worked a lot of hours, me and Josip’s financial status was good.”

The childhood friends moved to Ireland in 2019 to find work, but stated that Dublin, in particular, had become “intimidating” in recent years.

Druzinec recalls being the target of various anti-immigrant comments in recent years and had avoided living in Dublin for that reason.

“I saw stuff like this a lot of times in Dublin. There were many times I saw these people in the streets, they were saying stuff to people, especially to some black people.”

“It’s different because it happened to us two weeks ago, but this kind of thing has happened a lot of times,” he stated.

He said that “something needs to change” and that anti-immigrant sentiment has risen over the last year.

Strok’s father Nedjeljko, who served as a police officer  in Croatia, insisted that Gardaí “didn’t listen.”

“What bothers me the most is that the Gardaí didn’t listen to David who was a witness to what happened. No matter how bad the truth, you go from there,” he said.

The Irish Independent reports that Gardaí are now treating the assault as a hate crime, and have searched the home of the suspected “ringleader” of the group. 

The attack has drawn condemnation from elected representatives, with local independent councillor Francis Timmons stating “it is really important to stress that the hate that led to this murder is not representative of the good and decent people of Clondalkin, we have always been a welcoming community that is tolerant and accepting.”

Despite this, Timmons has also called out the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.

“The anger towards refugees, asylum seekers and others seeking a better life would be best directed at changing our political landscape by voting progressive candidates in the local and European elections.”

He said that the various crises in housing, health and education were not caused by immigrants.

 “I want to reach out the hand of solidarity to everyone from Croatia living here and in Croatia and state our disgust and anger at this appalling cowardly and disgraceful act of brutal murder in our community, I also want others from other countries that will be feeling vulnerable that this is not Clondalkin and not south Dublin.”

Local TD Gino Kenny told the Dáil that the attack was “grotesque.”

“Hateful and xenophobic language is trickling down to individuals who will weaponise this horrible, toxic language and use grotesque violence. I ask people who use this language to think again given the horrible stuff going on in our country at this time.”

Taoiseach Simon Harris said that while he didn’t want to comment on the specifics of an ongoing criminal investigation, he agreed with Kenny “this is a country that is the better for migration.”

“Yes, we have challenges. Yes, the Government and governments across the world need to do better in terms of how our systems operate and our accommodation responses. However, let us be very clear. Looking around an Irish hospital, restaurant, childcare setting or anywhere one might go today, one will see in real time the benefits of immigration to this country.”