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Camden News - by TOM FOOT
Published: 26 February 2009

Mystery death of Czech diplomat

Inquest dramatically interrupted by consulate’s demand for body to be ‘returned to Prague’

ST Pancras coroner’s court was at the centre of an unusual diplomatic incident on Thursday when the Czech consulate dramatically interrupted an inquest to demand the immediate return of the body of its British ambassador.
The full circumstances surrounding the death of Jan Winkler, 51, a former director of the National Gallery and deputy foreign minister in the Czech Republic, will now not be heard in open court and remain a mystery to the British courts.
Paramedics took 50 minutes to get inside his high-security mansion in Redington Road, Hampstead, after he called 999 complaining of a suspected heart attack, the court heard.
Mr Winkler, a highly regarded diplomat, suffered a cardiac arrest in an ambulance and was later pronounced dead at the Royal Free Hospital.
St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid said: “The autopsy proved inconclusive so we took further steps to investigate his death. The Vice Consul did not at that time assert diplomatic immunity and we inferred that it had been waived.
“I had already decided to open an inquest, because this was a sudden and unknown death in my jurisdiction.”
The coroner said he wrote to Mr Winkler’s wife warning her that her husband’s brain would need to be “retained for pathological examination”.
But on Thursday morning, a fax arrived from the Czech government ordering the inquest to be scrapped and the immediate return of the ambassador’s body and brain to Prague under diplomatic immunity rules, the court heard.
Dr Reid said: “Although the cause of death cannot be ascertained, I have decided to take no further examinations and return the body to the Czech Republic.”
The court heard Mr Winkler, the Czech ambassador to the UK, lived alone in his Hampstead residence. His wife and three children lives in his home country.
Dr Reid said: “I am satisfied there were no signs of violence, restraint or assault. The police attended but there were no suspicious circumstances. We are satisfied that no other State was involved. The body will be returned to Prague.”

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