The Nagode Trial () was a political

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a d ...

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

in 1947.Vodušek Starič, Jerca. 1993. Nagodetov proces. ''Enciklopedija Slovenije'', vol. 7, p. 270. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. The trial was carried out by the Slovene authorities under the leadership of the Communist Party of Slovenia against non-communist politicians that wished to participate in politics in Slovenia after 1945. In May 1947 the

State Security Administration The State Security Service, also known by its original name as the Directorate for State Security, was the secret police organization of Communist Yugoslavia. It was at all times best known by the acronym UDBA, which is derived from the organiz ...

(i.e., the secret police, UDBA) arrested 32 highly educated intellectuals. These included some former members of the Communist Party of Slovenia, but the majority were liberal democrats that were inclined toward western-style

parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...

. On 27 July 1947, the indictment was brought against 14 accused. Those were Črtomir Nagode,

Ljubo Sirc Ljubo Sirc CBE (19 April 1920 – 1 December 2016) was a British- Slovene economist and prominent dissident from Yugoslavia. Life and work Sirc was born in Kranj, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, in a wealthy and ren ...

, Leon Kavčnik, Boris Furlan, Zoran Hribar, Angela Vode, Metod Kumelj, Pavla Hočevar, Svatopluk Zupan, Bogdan Stare, Metod Pirc, Vid Lajovic, Franjo Sirc, and Elizabeta Hribar. Proceedings against

Franc Snoj Franc Snoj (28 January 1902 – 22 April 1962) was a Slovenian politician and economist. He was a minister without portfolio in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1938 and 1939. During the Second World War, together with the other members of the Yugosl ...

were added to this trial on 4 August. They were interrogated and tortured for two months in Ljubljana's prisons. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia used the Yugoslav media to characterize those arrested as "a handful of spies, class enemies, foreign paid agents, who have no political program and whose work, with no political value at all, is to damage the people's authority." The trial against the accused began on July 29, and the proceedings were broadcast to the public via special loudspeakers on the streets. The public prosecutor in the trial was Viktor Avbelj, later a president of the presidency of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, and Drago Supančič was used as an incriminating witness. The trial became known as the "Nagode trial" after the principal defendant. After 13 days of hearings, on August 12 three of the defendants (Nagode, Boris Furlan, and Ljubo Sirc) were sentenced to be shot, and the remainder were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences with forced labor, deprivation of all civil rights, and confiscation of their property. Nagode was shot on August 27, 1947Mlakar, Boris. 1993. Črtomir Nagode. ''Enciklopedija Slovenije'', vol. 7, p. 270. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. and the death sentences against Furlan and Sirc were commuted to 20 years in prison. Two of those sentenced committed suicide. In 1991 the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia overturned the conviction against Nagode and his fourteen co-defendants on the grounds that it was based on false testimony and that it had been a corrupt trial against imaginary Western spies.

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