Czech government institute discloses names of hundreds former military spies by mistake

Czechs disclose military spies’ names by mistake

PRAGUE — Officials say a Czech government institute mistakenly posted the names of hundreds of former military intelligence agents online.

The Security Services Archive of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes published in March a database of thousands of communist-era agents.

But 380 of them continued to work for the Military Intelligence after the 1989 collapse of communism and the database, which was available online until June, was not supposed to contain their details.

The institute acknowledged it made a mistake. Archive director Ladislav Bukovszky was fired.

Defense Ministry spokesman Jan Pejsek said the disclosure was a problem but doesn’t pose a risk for the intelligence service’s operations because no names of current agents were disclosed.