Former top prosecutor dies.

(From The Slovak Spectator)

FORMER General Prosecutor Milan Hanzel, who led investigations into crimes allegedly committed by Ivan Lexa, Slovakia's intelligence chief under former prime minister Vladimir Meciar, was killed in an accident on November 22. He was 61.

Hanzel was critically wounded in a forest in Bodiky, near Dunajska Streda, when a tree fell on him during a windstorm, according to media reports. People whom Hanzel was with at the time say he was in the forest to cut firewood.

Alubos Homola, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told The Slovak Spectator that police are investigating the incident.

A medical helicopter was called to the scene. The rescuers, who initially had trouble reaching Hanzel due to the forest's rough terrain, managed to resuscitate him long enough to rush him to a hospital in Bratislava's Kramare district, where he died an hour later, said Rut Gerzova, the hospital's spokesperson.

The media has published several statements by people surprised that Hanzel went into the forest in such bad weather.

"Even a child knows that when there is strong wind, you should not go into a forest, let alone saw a tree," Ladislav Ciprusz, a resident of Bodiky, told Pravda daily.