Prague - Czech weekly Respekt will not apologize for publishing claims that Milan Kundera in 1950 betrayed a Western spy to the communist police.

"They sent a very short note saying they won't apologize," said Jiří Srstka, director of Dilia, an agency that represents the Czech-born writer in the Czech Republic, on Friday 31 October. Respekt chief editor Martin M. Šimečka has confirmed the news.

Citing a 1950 police report discovered by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the weekly reported in mid-October that Miroslav Dvořáček was arrested in 1950 after Kundera told police about the spy's arrival in Prague.

Dvořáček, a Czech émigré working as a spy for the West, was convicted of treason and spent almost 14 years in jail and work camps.

The article prompted Kundera, who has lived in France since the 1970s, break his traditional silence and speak to the media for the first time in decades. In a phone call with the ČTK news agency he denied the allegation and called the Respekt article "a writer's assassination".

Last week Kundera sent a letter to the magazine's owner, coal tycoon Zdeněk Bakala, demanding an apology in Respekt, including on the cover. Kundera did not demand financial compensation.

His agent said Kundera might sue Respekt for libel, but later retracted his statement. "He is now considering further steps," says Srstka.

Case fuels Czechs' misgivings about Kundera

In a heated debate in the Czech media, only a few personalities have stood up to defend Kundera, including literary critic Zdeněk Pešat who claims that the real informer was Dvořáček's and Kundera's common friend Miroslav Dlask.

The case has also received considerable attention from the media abroad. Le Figaro reported that the accusation has added oil to the fire in the complicated relationship between Czechs and Kundera. The French newspaper said Czechs "hate Kundera with admiration".

New York Times suggested that "the allegations could diminish Mr. Kundera's moral stature as a spokesman, however enigmatic, against totalitarianism's corrosion of daily life."

"The charges against Kundera could seriously undermine his reputation in his native country as the scourge of Communism," wrote The Independent in a story entitled The unbearable betrayal of Milan Kundera?