Former finance minister reports to prison

Former finance minister and member of the Social Democrat Party, Ivo Svoboda, has reported to a Prague prison to serve a five-year sentence for embezzlement. He and his former adviser, Barbora Snopkova were found guilty of embezzling funds worth 300,000 US dollars from a bankrupt baby carriage manufacturer between 1996 and 1998 and they lost a final appeal in the case last autumn. Mr Svoboda is the first member of a post-Communist Czech government to be handed down a prison sentence.