Czechs jail communist prosecutor after 57 years

...pro-democracy politician in 1950, news agency CTK reported.

Former prosecutor Ludmila Brozova-Polednova was found guilty of complicity to murder for helping lead the case against Milada Horakova, whose show trial became one of the most notorious of the communist era.

Horokova was executed for treason on the basis of what historians believe was fabricated evidence and became a symbol of the fight against communism.

Brozova-Polednova is one of only a handful of former public officials to be tried and convicted since the fall of communism in 1989.

Her lawyer had demanded that the charges be dropped. She has the right to appeal against the sentence.

The Prague City Court tried Brozova-Polednova in absentia due to her poor health, and Czech news Web site www.aktualne.cz quoted the judge as saying health would likely prevent her from reporting to jail.

Officials at the court were not immediately available for comment on the sentence.

Communist rulers used Horakova's trial, modelled on purges in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, to spread propaganda about anti-government cells accused of planning a return to capitalism and of assisting Western spies.

Horokova had been jailed by the Nazis throughout World War Two and was then accused of treason by the communists after they seized power in 1948.

[PRAGUE/Reuters/Finance.cz]