Prague - The Constitutional court upheld a sentence of 3.5 years in prison given to a former secret police agent.
Jiří Šimák and Zbyněk Dudek were found guilty in 2002 for torture of dissidents during a so called Asanace (Clearance) operation. The code-named Asanace campaign was organized to harass and torture political dissidents during the 1970s and 1980s. Some of them left the country.
Šimák appealed against the verdict with the Constitutional court but the Court upheld the original sentence.
Šimák and Dudek stood accused of torturing dissident Zbyněk Benýšek. They beat him and kicked him in his stomach and poured water over his head. Benýšek emigrated to Austria.
Jiří Šimák was also accused of attacking brutally former dissident Zina Freundova. She left Czechoslovakia for Great Britain, fearing for her own life.
The feared secret police agents threatened the anti-communist dissidents and harassed them, often physically. The main aim of Asanace was to make the dissidents leave the country.
Among those who fled the country because of this intimidation were musicians Vlasta Třešňák and Jaroslav Hutka, writer and chief rabbi Karol Sidon, actor Pavel Jandovský and writer and publicist Petruška Šustrová.
Dragging on and on
The Asanace case has been dragging on for long 14 years.
Some accuse the Czech authorities to be slow to prosecute former secret agents who tortured anti-communist dissidents.
One of the infamous court cases was a story of Alois Grebeníček, a former secret police agent who tortured political prisoners in the 1950s. But before he could be brought to justice, he had died in hospital at the age of 81. His death closed the file of yet another case that dragged out for six years.
Former prosecutor Ludmila Brožová-Polednová who was accused of sending pro-democratic politicians Milada Horáková to the gallows in 1950 was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison. But due to her alleged bad health she may not start her jail sentenced. The case is still pending.
According to Czech historian Tomáš Bursík it is little late to punish the crimes of communism now. Most of the "torturers" happen to be in an advanced age and some of them have already died. But it is never late to prove people guilty.
