Prague, Feb 3 (CTK) – Former Czechoslovak communist premier Lubomir Strougal will not be prosecuted over his responsibility for the deaths of people who perished when they tried to get through the Iron Curtain to West European countries, the police office that dealt with the case told CTK on Wednesday.
Strougal’s case is statute barred and the investigation has ended, Czech Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes (UDV) spokesman Jan Srb told CTK.
Srb said the limitations period was five years and it expired in 1994.
Strougal, 91, was premier of the communist Czechoslovakia in 1970-1988.
The investigators suspected him of being responsible for the deaths of those who were killed by an electric barrier, which the Czech authorities erected before the borders with Germany and Austria, during their attempt to flee the country in the early 1960s.
Being interior minister in 1961-1965, Strougal should have prevented high voltage from being used in the electric barrier, according to the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.
This group calls for the punishment of surviving communist-era criminals. It claims that the communist leaders committed crimes against humanity that are not statute barred.
According to available data, more than 250 people died at the Czechoslovak border. Border guards shot dead 143 people, the electricity in the border fence killed nearly 100 and two people were killed by mines.
The Czechoslovak communist authorities started building the Iron Curtain in 1951. In 1952-1957, the area between the fences was mined. A high voltage fence was added to the barrier in 1952 and the electricity was definitively switched off in the mid-1960s.
