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Out of time

Supreme Court tries prosecutor for murder

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 11th, 2008 issue

ČTK

Horáková takes the stand as one of 13 defendants accused of treason at the State Court in Pankrác June 6, 1950.

On the day lawyer and political activist Milada Horáková received her death

sentence in 1950, a histrionic monologue rang through the packed courtroom. It was delivered by 28-year-old Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, a rookie prosecutor who used traditional communist rhetoric to mold the accused into the archetypal “class enemy.”

“And so, as [a textile worker] from the Kotona factory in Beroun increased her productivity to contribute to building our republic as much as possible, the accused Horáková was busy assembling underground enemy gangs to destroy our republic,” Brožová-Polednová thundered in her closing argument.

As one of five prosecutors in a highly publicized political trial that resulted in the execution of four people including Horáková and the imprisonment of nine others, Brožová-Polednová played a key role in the judiciary murder plot.

So states the latest decision of the Supreme Court, which ruled June 4 to return Brožová-Polednová’s case to the Upper Court in Prague. Earlier this year, that court had acquitted Brožová-Polednová of complicity in murder, claiming the crime was past the statute of limitations.

Previously, the now 87-year-old former prosecutor was sentenced to an eight-year imprisonment by the lower-level Prague Municipal Court, which found her guilty of the same charges last November.

To allow for the prosecution of communist-era felonies, Czech law exempts major crimes that occurred between 1948 and 1989 from the statute of limitations.

In the overturned decision, however, the Upper Court interpreted Brožová-Polednová’s involvement in Horáková’s trial as a minor crime, deeming it ineligible for such an exemption.

“The Supreme Court does not agree with the Upper Court’s argument,” Supreme Court spokesman Petr Knötig said of the current decision. “Brožová-Polednová’s case is not statute-barred. As a prosecutor, she partook in the liquidation of uncomfortable persons and played an active role in the construed process.”

The prosecution of Horáková and her so-called accomplices is known as the most notorious political process of the communist “reign of terror” that swept through Czechoslovakia during the regime’s early years. Dictated by the Soviet government and carefully orchestrated by the local communist apparatus, the trial emulated the 1930s political purges in the Soviet Union.

“It was basically the communists’ ploy to settle accounts with their political enemies,” said historian Tomáš Bursík of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. “It aimed to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.”

After contemplating myriad potential scapegoats, communist authorities pinpointed lawyer and politician Milada Horáková, a World War II resistance fighter and parliamentary representative for the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (ČSNS).

A well-known opponent of the communist party, Horáková sent reports on the conditions in the newly communist country to her exiled connections abroad and organized underground meetings of the ČSNS, which later contributed to her conviction of treason and espionage.

In September 1949, Horáková was arrested and accused of leading a subversive group that planned to overthrow the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Twelve other people were subsequently detained in connection with the case.

Comprising former members of the ČSNS and other political parties stripped of their power after the 1948 communist coup, “the group essentially symbolized these opposing political factions,” Bursík said.

During the probes and barbaric interrogations that followed the arrests, investigators amassed enough evidence to convince the public that the group’s crimes warranted the death penalty. The accused were subsequently primed for a theatrical trial and ordered to memorize lines from a predetermined script, Bursík said.

A key player

The youngest and only surviving member of the five-member group of prosecutors in Horáková’s trial, Brožová-Polednová was no legal expert.

At 28, she had studied for one year at a law school for working professionals, and was a first-year student at Charles University’s Law Faculty.

“From the class perspective of those days, it was not necessary to have a sophisticated outlook on the world,” said Bursík. “The communist regime did not care whether the person was a laborer or a pig farmer, as long as he belonged and expressed devotion to the communist party.”

He added that Brožová-Polednová was handpicked for the show trial due to her past involvement in the successful prosecution of Catholic priests in Moravia, who received harsh sentences for their religious activities.

Because Horáková was not only a renowned politician but also the first woman to be executed by the communist regime, it was essential to vilify her through the presence of a righteous female character. “They wanted to play up the emotional aspect of femininity,” Bursík said.

Horáková had two daughters, yet she risked their safety by allegedly instigating World War III. Brožová-Polednová used this to portray her as pitiless, he said.

According to Knötig, the most poignant illustration that Brožová-Polednová’s involvement in Horáková’s trial was anything but passive was the execution itself.

“Not only did she attend the hangings — she also reportedly acted mockingly and inappropriately during them,” he said.

Now a retiree, the former prosecutor did not attend her own trial due to health reasons.

During her sentencing last November, Prague Municipal Court justice Petr Braun said it was highly unlikely Brožová-Polednová would serve a single day of her sentence.

Nevertheless, Bursík views the latest Supreme Court verdict as a necessary step in the state’s ongoing struggle to come to terms with its communist past.

After 1989, several former communist prosecutors were acquitted of similar charges by local courts, he said.

“Brožová-Polednová knew very well what she was doing. She was an integral wheel in the mechanism,” he said. “It’s not at all about sending an 87-year-old woman to jail. It’s about saying ‘Yes, a crime has been committed,’ and that there are certain — albeit symbolic — punishments for that crime.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com

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