Kundera says he had no opportunity to react in advance to informing allegation

Writer Milan Kundera has issued a statement, saying he was not given the chance to react to allegations he informed on someone nearly six decades ago, before the story was published by the Czech magazine Respekt. On Monday Respekt quoted a 1950 police record which says Mr Kundera reported the presence in Prague of a Czech-born foreign agent, leading to the man being sentenced to a long term in the uranium mines. For its part, the magazine says the world renowned author declined the opportunity to give his side of the story. Milan Kundera, who now lives in France, has described the allegations as lies. Meanwhile, literary historian Zdeněk Pešat has issued a statement saying Miroslav Dlask, a friend of the writer’s in his student days, admitted before his death that it was he who informed on the agent.