Czechs Round Up Ex-Party Chief, 4 Others Before Vote

Police detained former Communist Party chief Milos Jakes and at least four other ousted Communist leaders, the official news agency said today, just two days before the first free elections since 1946.

Those taken into custody for questioning also included Vasil Bilak, a former Communist Party ideology chief accused of having invited Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the “Prague Spring” reforms.

The others detained were former Premier Jozef Lenart, and former senior Communist Party leaders Michal Stefanak and Rudolf Hegenbart.

The detentions were certain to deal another blow to the Communists’ credibility before the election Friday and Saturday for the federal Parliament and the Czech and Slovak legislatures.

The official CTK news agency said Bilak was detained on suspicion of “committing serious criminal activity.” It gave no reason for the other detentions and did not say where the men are being held.

Bilak, 72, was picked up at midnight Tuesday from his home in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, Deputy Interior Minister Andrej Samel said.

Jakes, Stefanak and Hegenbart, answered summons from police this morning, Samel said. He said he did not know how long the four would be interrogated.

Jakes was Communist Party chief until Nov. 24, when he was ousted along with all senior figures who had enforced orthodox Communist rule after the Warsaw Pact invasion of August, 1968.

Hegenbart was named last week in a British Broadcasting Corp. documentary that claimed he was involved in a scheme with the Soviet KGB to oust Jakes last November.

“The public is going to be informed about the future course of the investigation,” the terse CTK report that focused on Bilak said.

Samel said the four summoned for interrogation were asked to help police to “clarify their activities related to the 1968 invasion and possibly other criminal activities as well.”

“They could have refused the summons, but willingly complied,” he said.

Jakes, Bilak and Lenart were all expelled from the party after the November revolution that brought President Vaclav Havel to power.

In April this year, Czechoslovak prosecutors launched an investigation into the 1968 Soviet-led invasion. The investigation was to clarify what prosecutors have termed “all circumstances of this criminal offense against peace.”

That offense carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.