Bilak not to be punished for sanctioning Soviet-led invasion

The Slovak State Attorney’s Office has dropped criminal charges against former communist leader Vasil Bilak who sanctioned the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Bilak, one of the communist hardliners who opposed Alexander Dubcek’s Prague Spring reforms wrote a letter of invitation to the Moscow leadership asking the Soviets to stop the “counter-revolution” in Czechoslovakia by any means. In 2000 the Slovak authorities launched criminal proceedings against Vasi Bilak on charges of treason, but investigators said there was a lack of witnesses in the Czech Republic to take the now 93-year-old Bilak to court.