Calculating that their chances of making it to the West would be higher from Czechoslovakia than from their own country, they drove to Děvín Castle, on the outskirts of Bratislava, climbed onto to the roof of their BMW car, and jumped over a wire border fence into the Morava River. Then they began swimming.

Austria was within sight. The prospect of a new life was tantalizingly close.

As Schlenz reached Austrian territory and clambered over a stone barrier, a bullet hit him in the head.

Czechoslovak border guards had sighted the fleeing Germans and opened fire with machine guns.

One of those who pulled the trigger was allegedly Josef Mlčoušek, a young soldier performing his military service with a Border Guard unit.

Schlenz died on the afternoon of Aug. 27, 1967. The High Court in Olomouc, north Moravia, ruled Nov. 9 this year that Mlčoušek should face trial over the killing, a decision that has reopened debate over a bloody aspect of the communist past.

Reacting to the legal decision, state prosecutor Pavel Vaida said, "If you want to use the word 'victory,' yes, it was a victory."

The Olomouc ruling overturns a February 2004 court decision to dismiss a charge of attempted murder against Mlčoušek — a verdict handed down after a ballistics expert testified he could not be sure who fired the fatal bullet that ended Schlenz's bid for freedom.

The protracted judicial proceedings have highlighted the difficulties in convicting border guards suspected of killing escapees who tried to cross Czechoslovakia's borders with Austria and Germany during the years of communist rule, from 1948 to 1989.

According to Prague historian Martin Pulec, 145 people were killed under such circumstances.

Mlčoušek, who is now 58 and works as a storekeeper in the south Moravian city of Brno, has denied killing Schlenz, saying that he shot in the direction of the fleeing Germans intending only to frighten them and convince them to return.

Meanwhile, former border guards have made it clear they're unhappy with the new judicial decision.

"Mlčoušek could not have acted differently," ex-guard Milan Richter told court reporters. "If he had not obeyed his orders, he would have been held accountable. I side with him."

Some 300 people who served as border guards during the communist era argued during an Oct. 22 meeting in Prague that they were acting within the laws valid at the time, Czech Television reported.

But Jan Srb, a spokesman for the Office for the Investigation and Documentation of Communist Crimes (ÚDV), which is funded by the Interior Ministry, said after the trial that border guards did not have to open fire: "When former border guards say that they were forced to shoot, that is nonsense."

Srb added that guards were in fact not allowed to enter or shoot into foreign territory.

Even aside from this thorny issue, convicting former soldiers over the deaths of people shot while fleeing to the West is a long and difficult process.

Eighteen former guards have so far faced charges in court in recent years, but 16 of them have been found not guilty, while two received suspended sentences, according to historian Pulec, formerly of the ÚDV.

State prosecutor Vaida said cases like that of Mlčoušek are complex and prolonged because "the damaged persons were from East Germany, some of the witnesses were Austrian, so we had to seek international help."

Even if convicted, an ex-border guard is unlikely to be given hard jail time.

"There is a general criminal code principle that the longer the time from the date of the crime, the weaker the possibility to provide for a severe punishment," Vaida said.

Schlenz's 1967 death while fleeing to Austria caused a cooling of relations between Vienna and Prague in the 1960s, with the Austrians accusing Czechoslovakia of an illegal encroachment onto their territory.

Explaining its Nov. 9 decision that legal proceedings against Mlčoušek should be renewed, the High Court in Olomouc said that an earlier legal hearing did not address the issue of Mlčoušek "allegedly firing his shots into the territory of a foreign country."

Such actions "could be evaluated as abuse of a public official's power," a title that does apply to border guards, the High Court added.