* Four detained for attacks against Roma

* Police says attacks likely racially motivated

(Adds details from police news conference)

By Sandor Peto

BUDAPEST, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Four men have been detained in Hungary on suspicion of carrying out attacks in which several Gypsies, or Roma, were killed, underscoring growing ethnic tension in the European Union member, police said on Friday.

National police chief Jozsef Bencze said the attacks, which have claimed several lives over the past year, were probably racially motivated but further investigation was needed.

"We have the appropriate evidence to justify the suspicion (of the murders)," he told a news conference.

Bencze did not disclose the names of the suspects, who were detained in a bar in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen, and said a court would rule over the weekend whether to place the suspects under arrest.

A police spokesman had earlier said six people had been detained, of whom five were suspected in the attacks. Bencze did not explain the discrepancy in the numbers.

Earlier this month a 45-year-old Roma woman was killed in Kisleta in eastern Hungary, and her 13-year-old daughter was seriously injured when gunmen broke into their home at night and shot the victims in their sleep.

In February, in one of the most brutal attacks on Roma, a man and his five-year-old son were shot dead when they attempted to flee their home that was set on fire with a Molotov cocktail.

Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom warned that the attacks could undermine Hungary's stability and said ethnic tension was at risk of getting out of control.

Anti-Roma tensions have heightened in the past years in Hungary where 6-7 percent of the population are Gypsies.

Hungary's economy has suffered its worst downturn in two decades and is expected to contract by 6.7 percent in 2009, making the country one of the laggards of the 27-nation European Union.

(Reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

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