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In related news, the leader of the Social Democrats, Jiří Paroubek, said on Friday that the Civic Democrats new election leader Petr Nečas needed to distance himself from Mírek Topolánek as well as the party’s campaign manager, Ivan Langr. He added that Mr. Nečas should apologize for the failure of Mr. Topolánek’s government and remove Mr. Langr, who has been suspected of having ties to organized crime, from his position as campaign manager. If he fails to do so, he will prove to be a puppet of the Civic Democrats’ leading politicians, he added.

Mr. Paroubek on Friday suggested that the two strongest parties on the Czech political scene should agree to conduct a decent election campaign. Mr. Nečas refused the offer saying it could not be taken seriously since the Social Democrats themselves do not abide by such conduct.

The Supreme Court in Prague has halved the six-year prison sentence of Ludmila Brožová-Polednová based on presidential amnesties given in previous years, the daily Právo has reported. The decision partially confirms the verdict of a district court earlier in the month, which ruled that the former communist prosecutor must be absolved of her sentence in full. Právo writes that she will now have the right to request parole next March, after a third of her sentence has been served; the court has yet to make any statement on the ruling. 88-year-old Ludmila Brožová-Polednová was imprisoned in 2009 for the judicial murder of Milada Horáková, a politician executed by the communist regime in 1950 after a show trial. She is the oldest prisoner in the Czech Republic.

Hanna Schygulla, by some considered the most important actress in contemporary German cinema, accepted the Kristián lifetime achievement award at the Prague film festival Febiofest on Thursday night. The actress, best known for her collaboration with acclaimed German director Reiner Werner Fassbinder, received the award from the minister of culture, Václav Riedlbauch, on the festival’s opening night. The ceremony was followed by a screening of The Marriage of Maria Braun, a film with Mrs. Schygulla in the lead role. Febiofest will run in Prague until April 2 and features 184 films from 57 countries.

Police found the dead body of a soldier in the Moravice river in the Silesia region on Friday morning. Colleagues and relatives were able to identify the body thanks to the uniform the soldier was wearing. Police are now investigating possible causes of the man’s death. The soldier, who was 36 years old, went missing in late January, allegedly after he had left his house to go for a walk.