Rudolf Slansky, son of 1950s show trial victim Slansky, dies at 71

Rudolf Slansky, a former diplomat and dissident, has died at the age of 71. He was expelled from the Communist Party following the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 and later signed the Charter 77 protest document. From 1990 to 1996 he was Czechoslovak and then Czech ambassador to Moscow, where he had spent the war years as a boy. His father, also Rudolf Slansky, was executed in the 1950s after Czechoslovakia's most notorious show trial.

Author: Ian Willoughby