In the 1980’s, the Board of National Security (SNB) in Prague had several icons that couldn’t be missed. It was the Administration of Prague’s and Central Bohemian Region’s SNB, which had its seat in Bartolomejska Street in the notorious ‘Tile’. The whole street was filled with many other SNB institutions and this ‘kingdom’ stretched across the yard into Konviktska Street, the seat of Criminal Police, Scene of Crime Response Group, Criminalistic Technicians, etc.
The ‘Tile’ was the seat of the State Security Police as well as the SNB headquarters with general Bohumil Carda as its chief, a local inseparable character, who was in the office until the end of 1989. The attitude of the public towards the SNB was rather uneasy, as it was not just the seat of the Police but also of its repressive unit whose purpose was to pursue the ‘inner enemies’. That is to say, the State Security Police was a part of the SNB and it was not very popular.
Very few criminal cases
The press did not write much about the SNB and criminality took up very little space in the newspapers and the television. The reason was simple; criminality in a socialist society was a marginal phenomenon. Rumour, on the contrary, talked about many different crimes that had taken place in Prague. The SNB was silent and the newspapers of that time were not very interested in criminal cases. Maybe just Signal, which was devoted to the work of the security unit, brought information about criminal cases, then there was also Večerni Praha, which kept its tradition dating back to 1960’s and published police and judicial news, and also Svobodné Slovo, which, as the only central newspaper regularly covered news from the courtrooms. No wonder, that when people in Videňská Street saw a person ( with probably a submachine gun) shooting out of a police car at the car in front of it, nobody knew that the stolen vehicle was driven by a man who escaped from a courtroom.
“We were happy at Criminal Police that newspapers did not write about crimes. At least nobody bothered us. Only from time to time a boss, upon a recommendation of the direction, released information about a big case. It was, for instance, at the beginning of the 1980’s, when the Criminal Police arrested Ladislav Hojer, the notorious women murderer. The chief of the Criminal Police invited a reporter from Večerní Praha and told him about the circumstances of the arrest. Everything was published, because people knew about the murders and it was necessary to show them, that the danger was no longer there. It was similar with the ‘Spartakiad murderer’ Jiří Straka because the rumour, which was by the way very accurate, couldn’t be stopped,” Petr Link, a former Criminal Police officer and later Prague Police Administration Spokesperson remembers the situation in the 1980’s.
Večerník Praha devoted not only its first article (of three columns) to the apprehension of Hojer, a case which dragged throughout the whole 1980’s but it also informed about the latest stages of the case and about the final judgment. It is worth mentioning that Hojer was the last executed person in the history of Czech Justice.
The SNB was only willing to make public those cases that were approved by the direction. Sometimes, employees of the Press Department of Prague’s and Central Bohemian’s SNB released information from a District Criminal Police as a prevention, e.g. against stealing property in social ownership (Sec. 132). However, everything changed with the arrival of November 1989 and one event followed another.
Increase in criminality
“Until 1990, criminality in Prague was almost invariable. Approximately 25 murders were investigated each year. Most of the time it concerned murders of a sexual character, such as the case of the Spartakiad murderer Jiří Straka, or it concerned a robbery motive, which often happened in dormitories. The third place was taken by what the criminalists call a home slaughtering referring to home disputes ending in death. Also the detection rate was very high ranging from 95 to even 100 per cent. The detection of other crimes was of course high, too, it was often over 70 per cent,” Petr Link recollects the times before the year 1990.
“After November 1989, criminality was from the beginning influenced by Havel’s amnesty. Prisons almost became empty, the death penalty was abolished, so e.g. Zdeněk Vocásek, who was in the 1980’s sentenced to death for the brutal murders of two old men, in the end he avoided death by hanging, despite the fact that the execution was meant to take place before the abolition. Streets were very busy, one robbery after another, shop burglaries, car thefts was a daily business…suddenly it was too much. However, I’d say that after three years, this enormous increase in criminality was stopped and even lowered, because we managed to catch all these villains. Nonetheless, the situation in the society was completely different then,” says Petr Link.
Why a spokesperson
The intervention in Narodni třída in November 1989 created a certain mistrust towards the police. This affected not only the SNB units, conforming to the communist regime, but unfortunately also the Criminal Police. Voices of wise people that an efficient police is a must were drowned in general condemnation. Changes and reorganization, dismissal of ones and appointment of others that had nothing to do with the police, this is what was happening.
“Criminal Police where I was serving was affected by the changes, yet not so often as other units. Besides, we started to cooperate with police of other countries, e.g. with Austrian and with German police, we used to go to the USA to gain some experience. From there we learned, that the Czech Criminal Police was not so different from those in America, Austria or Germany. What is more, the work of Czech Criminal Police was valued abroad. What we lacked was better contact with the public, mainly with media which would have been helpful in restoring the prestige of the Police. I, as a criminalist, wasn’t so enthusiastic about it. After all so many criminal cases that were made public ended up in a stalemate. It was precisely some of the details which the Police informed of, that disrupted the investigation,” remembers Link.
When Pavel Hofman (future director of Prague’s Police), came back from one of his work trips abroad, he came to the conclusion that it was necessary that the Police have a spokesperson. He knew that it was not only the question of criminal cases. By means of publishing the Police achievements he wanted to improve the bad image of the Police.
“This is how I became a spokesperson. We knew each other from the Criminal Police in Prague 9 and he wanted the spokesperson to be a criminalist. He knew that laymen could do a lot of harm by letting out details that Criminal Police want to keep secret. So I started to do what I did not particularly want to do,” says Link.
New types of criminality
New types of crimes appeared after the year 1990. The first commissioned murder was recorded by the media in 1993 when on 9th July there was a married couple murdered in Karlin for property reasons. Also the end of Ivan Jonak, who is still in prison, was marked by a commissioned murder.
“In the mid 1990’s there were a lot of cocaine smugglers from South America. The drug was smuggled in luggage but also in stomachs,” recalls Petr Link. “Probably the most interesting, especially for the media, was the case of a Columbian woman who died right on platform number 2 in the Main Railway Station. The police officers were at a loss when they tried to help a woman who looked as if she was having an epileptic fit. They called the ambulance which transported the woman to the hospital in Vinohrady, however she died one hour later. 84 ampoules with cocaine were found in her stomach during the autopsy. One of them burst. No medical intervention would have been able to save the woman’s life.”
“Other crimes appeared, that until 1989 used to be an exception or that we had not encountered before: kidnapping together with blackmail. The victims were businesspeople or people close to them. The most curious case that happened when I was the spokesman was blackmailing one Prague businessman through a carrier pigeon. The case has not been clarified. One businessman got a parcel with a living carrier pigeon. There was also a letter telling him to attach four banknotes to the pigeon (marks or dollars in the nominal value of one thousand) and to free the pigeon. The pigeon was monitored by a helicopter (there is nothing unusual in that, pigeons during competitions are sometimes monitored by helicopters). However, it never got to its destination,” remembers Link.
Foreigners on the scene
Criminality was also affected by the influx of foreigners to Prague. Russians, Ukrainians, Italians, Bulgarians, citizens of former Yugoslavia, Kosovo Albanians, Chinese…Their presence had an impact on the number of murders after the year 1990. “In the 1990’s a lot of mafia related murders appeared, different clans were shooting with submachine guns, there were murders among Ukrainian labourers, even the Chinese community recorded some murders. Some of them were commissioned, the perpetrator often came to Prague just for a few hours and then left. Drug smuggling, mostly heroin, was the domain for Kosovo Albanian mafia. This also contributed to the increase in criminality. Today’s sources state that about a third of all crimes in the Czech Republic are committed by foreigners. I think that it was similar in 1990’s, maybe the percentage was even a little bit higher,” estimates Link.
First protesters
The dissolution of the Emergency Group, which was used to intervene during demonstrations throughout 1989, was a political necessity. However, it was a clear mistake, that no other similar unit was formed to replace it.
“It soon turned out what a big mistake it was. You will certainly remember Sladek’s demonstration on 28 October 1994, when thousands of supporters of the Republican party from the whole country came to the demonstration into which mixed anarchists and skinheads; the Police or the Municipal Police did not have the force, nor the means to intervene,” describes Link. For that matter after the demonstration, the mayor of Prague asked the Police to have more trained horses for such occasions. “It was even worse during the Street Party, when only the policemen from the Emergency Motorised Unit intervened, that is those who come when you dial 158. It was obvious that it was high time to create a big order unit, which now exists and nobody finds it strange”, says Petr Link.
Green light for Municipal Police
The Municipal Police was established at the beginning of 1990’s. The people who joined it were either people coming from security agencies or policemen. “Today we can see that a lot of interesting experience from the Police is picked by the Municipal Police and I would say that the Municipal Police is often better than the state police. I do not know what will happen in the future, but when I see the Mounted or River Police officers or the police officers in the Metro (he used to be with the SNB Metro Unit) it is obvious, that the Municipal Police manages very well to organise their work. What is more, they receive great support from the city. It will soon take over some of the work presently carried out by the Police of the CR,” says Link.
The Municipal Police has one more advantage over the Police of the CR: the changes in the management are minimal. With the Police of the CR, the ministers change very often and what is more, politicians, when they want to get votes from people, attack it, often without knowing anything at all about the situation.
Criminal cases that shook Prague
The public has always been shocked at capital offences and it was not, is not and will not be different. “In 1980’s there were probably two or three cases that were long spoken of. It was Hojer, Straka and Stehlik; all of them sexual deviants. In 1990’s, when the world of showbusiness was intertwined with the world of crime, it was the case of Jonak, who enticed everyone into his Discoland, from Karel Gott to Vitezslav Janak, and then also the escaped prisoner Winkelbauer, whose escape was known to everyone but nobody knew what was the basis of his crime,” recalls Petr Link. “We should also mention businessman Zimmermann, who first decimated his tenants in Jugoslavska Street and in the end he was killed by a murderer hired by his wife. I, personally, had to ‘savour’ some of these crimes , no longer as an investigator but as a spokesperson. Sometimes, it was very hard.”