Štrougal, along with other figures from communist totality, were prosecuted in recent years for his participation in the killings and maiming of people on the Czechoslovak border. With their knowledge, border guards shot Czechoslovaks who wanted to flee the regime to the West.

But the prosecution was stopped because, according to the expert opinion, Štrougal could not understand the meaning of the criminal process. Last year, a group of people injured and survivors of those killed trying to cross the Iron Curtain appealed to the Constitutional Court with a complaint against the suspension.

“We objected because the report was flawed. But now that Dr. Štrougal has died, there will be nothing left for review,” Lubomír Müller, a lawyer representing the injured Germans, told Seznam Zprávám.

Štrougal had been in the Communist Party since 1948, ten years later he became a member of the party’s Central Committee. In 1959 he was Minister of Agriculture, from 1965 to 1968 he was Minister of the Interior. In 1970, he became head of the federal government, a post he held for nearly 19 years. He became one of the main faces of normalization and one of the most prominent representatives of Husák’s time.

“For me, he will always be associated as Gustav Husák’s right-hand man, a true power technocrat and one of the main faces of the normalization of Czechoslovakia,” Ladislav Kudrna, director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, told Seznam Zprávám .

However, in the late 1980s, he was defeated in the internal party struggle and Miloš Jakeš became General Secretary of the Communist Party instead of Husák. Štrougal resigned in October 1988 and after the fall of the communist regime he withdrew from politics and retired.

Video: He defends Havel and Štrougal. I’m not an agent of StB, that’s bullshit, says lawyer Lžičař (15 February 2019)