Hungarian Communist leader arrested

A former Communist-era interior minister of Hungary is expected to celebrate his 91st birthday in custody after he was detained this week for his role in the bloody suppression of the country's 1956 Revolution against Soviet domination. He is the first of the 1956 Communist leadership to face a criminal inquiry, and the only surviving member of the Communist Party's interim executive committee from that year. Biszku is accused of failing to protect civilians in wartime, and of responsibility for ordering security forces to open fire on crowds – charges he denies – for which he could face a life sentence. Prosecutors want him put under house arrest. The uprising against Hungary's Communist dictatorship and its submission to the Soviet Union began in October of that year and toppled the government. Within three weeks, however, Soviet forces had invaded and re-imposed Communist rule. Listen to the report from regional correspondent Stefan Bos: