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Four Czechs - two men and two women - have died while journeying in Spain, killed when their car collided with a truck. The accident took place near the towns of Avila and Salamanka. Exact causes remain unknown. These fatalities follow 30 deaths in road accidents in Spain at the weekend.

Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan has defended police intervention that on Saturday brought to an end an illegal music festival known as Czechtek. Police - numbering more than a thousand and in full riot gear - resorted to using tear gas and water cannons against hundreds of partygoers on a meadow near the village of Mlynec na Tachovsku, west Bohemia. Many refused to leave the grounds and began throwing bottles. According to reports dozens suffered mostly minor injuries, with around twenty partygoers and five officers suffering more serious wounds requiring medical attention.

Despite the clash, the interior minister called the police intervention "necessary", though he said he regretted there had been injuries. Mr Bublan pointed out that officers decided to act following an assessment by a public prosecutor and an authorised expert at the scene, who backed earlier complaints by neighbouring landowners that visitors had damaged private property and broken the law. Police gave a half-hour advance warning before resorting to force to push attendees off the grounds. On the whole some 5,000 visitors attended the Czechtek festival before it was rolled up Saturday.

One partygoer was killed trying to reach festival grounds on Saturday after being struck by a motor vehicle - possibly a large truck. Police are trying to determine whether it was a clear hit-and-run, with the driver knowingly leaving the crime scene.

Czech police have intervened at an allegedly illegal music festival - known as Czechtek - held annually in the Czech Republic. Early Saturday the festival, held on a meadow near the village of Mlynec na Tachovsku, in west Bohemia, continued with some 5,000 visitors. But, police - numbering more than a thousand in riot gear and backed, for example, by water cannons - intervened Saturday afternoon, trying to force visitors off the grounds. Part of a nearby highway was closed off. Several hundred visitors reportedly refused to back down and began throwing bottles, at which point police resorted to using tear gas.

The police intervention followed charges pressed by neighbouring landowners who complained that visiting fans had clogged local roads and had damaged private property.

Police intervened only following an assessment by a public prosecutor and an authorised expert saying that festival-goers had broken the law. But, the owner of the grounds has complained he rented the site to festival organisers legally.

In the past, Czechtek has courted no small measure of controversy: last year the event, held elsewhere in Bohemia, resulted in property damages of an estimated 1.4 million crowns - the equivalent of about 56,000 dollars US. At that time police also stepped in.