The verdict of guilty on six people convicted 27 years ago for their involvement in the rape and murder of a Slovak medical student, Ľudmila Červanová, was upheld by the Bratislava Regional Court on January 20.
The sentenced men insist that they were victims of the Communist regime, which wanted to find someone responsible for the murder.
In March 1990 the trial was re-opened at the request of seven defendants, all men from the Nitra region, then aged between 35 and 40. They had received sentences ranging from four to 24 years.
The body of Ľudmila Červanová was found on July 14, 1976 in a stream near the village of Králová pri Senci, around 20 kilometres west of Bratislava. She had gone missing five days earlier after leaving a disco in Bratislava's Mlynská Dolina student neighbourhood.
The defendants received hundreds of thousands of crowns in compensation last year when the Constitutional Court upheld their petition against undue procrastination in the retrial process.
Compiled by Beata Balogová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
