Exhumation of Jan Masaryk: Czech police seek to clarify 1948 death
Czech police have begun exhumation of Jan Masaryk's remains to definitively determine whether he was murdered. The body was found in 1948 beneath a flat window.
Czech police exhume Masaryk following discovery of new documents
As reported by Google News SK — Crime (sk), Czech police began the exhumation of Jan Masaryk's remains on Wednesday morning at a cemetery near the presidential summer residence in Lány, west of Prague.
Masaryk, a former pro-Western Czechoslovak foreign minister, died under suspicious circumstances shortly after the communist takeover. His body was found on 10 March 1948 beneath a window of a service flat. Authorities closed the case as suicide, but doubts persisted for decades.
The case is being handled by the Office for Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, a specialist unit of Czech police, which is pursuing it as a suspected murder.
Police announced the beginning of the exhumation on the platform X and stated: "We believe that this will help us clarify the circumstances of Jan Masaryk's death."
Police spokesperson Jakub Vinčálek told AFP that investigators would attempt to complete the examination of the remains "as quickly as possible". He provided no further details.
The reopening of the investigation was aided by the discovery of new diplomatic and intelligence documents from the United States, Great Britain and France, which police announced in 2025. Since the fall of the communist regime following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the case has been repeatedly examined.
Jan Masaryk was the son of the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. During the Second World War he served as foreign minister of the London exile government and remained in the post after its end. In February 1948 he refused to join the mass resignations of non-communist ministers, which opened the way to power for the Moscow-backed government.
Source: Google News SK — Crime (sk)