A Czech non-profit organisation on Friday said it had filed a criminal complaint against dozens of individuals, including two former Czechoslovak communist leaders, for the deaths decades ago of five Germans killed while trying to cross the Iron Curtain.
The Prague-based Platform of European Memory and Conscience filed the complaint with the German prosecutor's office last week because no high-ranking official from communist-era Czechoslovakia has to date been brought to justice for the deaths of the German immigrants.
Only four border guards have been condemned for the deaths, according to Czech news agency CTK.
The complaint concerns 67 individuals "of Czech and Slovak nationality covering the entire chain of command who are responsible for five cases of killings of German victims at the Iron Curtain which separated former Czechoslovakia from Western Europe," the non-profit group said in a statement.
The victims include Hartmut Tautz, an 18-year-old mauled to death in 1986 by watch dogs at the Austrian-Czechoslovakian border, and Richard Schlenz, who was shot to death by border guards in 1967 after swimming across the Danube river into Austria.
Among those responsible, according to the complaint, are 94-year-old former communist party secretary general Milos Jakes and 91-year-old Lubomir Strougal, who was Czechoslovakia's premier and interior minister.
Also listed in the complaint is 91-year-old Slovak citizen Peter Colotka, a former deputy prime minister of Czechoslovakia, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
A Czech non-profit organisation on Friday said it had filed a criminal complaint against dozens of individuals, including two former Czechoslovak communist leaders, for the deaths decades ago of five Germans killed while trying to cross the Iron Curtain.
The Prague-based Platform of European Memory and Conscience filed the complaint with the German prosecutor’s office last week because no high-ranking official from communist-era Czechoslovakia has to date been brought to justice for the deaths of the German immigrants.
Only four border guards have been condemned for the deaths, according to Czech news agency CTK.
The complaint concerns 67 individuals “of Czech and Slovak nationality covering the entire chain of command who are responsible for five cases of killings of German victims at the Iron Curtain which separated former Czechoslovakia from Western Europe,” the non-profit group said in a statement.
The victims include Hartmut Tautz, an 18-year-old mauled to death in 1986 by watch dogs at the Austrian-Czechoslovakian border, and Richard Schlenz, who was shot to death by border guards in 1967 after swimming across the Danube river into Austria.
Among those responsible, according to the complaint, are 94-year-old former communist party secretary general Milos Jakes and 91-year-old Lubomir Strougal, who was Czechoslovakia’s premier and interior minister.
Also listed in the complaint is 91-year-old Slovak citizen Peter Colotka, a former deputy prime minister of Czechoslovakia, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
