Milada Horáková (née Králová, 25 December 1901 – 27 June 1950) was a Czech politician and a member of the underground resistance movement during World War II.

She was a victim of judicial murder, convicted and executed by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on fabricated charges of conspiracy and treason.

[2] Many prominent figures in the West, including Albert Einstein, Vincent Auriol, Eleanor Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, petitioned for her life.

[9] Following the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, Horáková returned to Prague and joined the leadership of the re-constituted Czech National Social Party.

[3][8] Before facing trial, Horáková and her co-defendants were subjected to intensive interrogation by the StB, the Czechoslovak state security organ, using both physical and psychological torture.

She was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia.

It was supervised by Soviet advisors and accompanied by a public campaign, organised by the Communist authorities, demanding the death penalty for the accused.

Invoking the values of Czechoslovakia's democratic presidents, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, she declared that "no-one in this country should be put to death or be imprisoned for their beliefs.

"[13] Milada Horáková was sentenced to death on 8 June 1950, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, and Záviš Kalandra).

Many prominent figures in the West, notably scientist Albert Einstein, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, French President Vincent Auriol and former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed.

[12][16] In January 2020 she was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Double Cross (1st Class) by Slovak president Zuzana Čaputová.

[17] Milada Horáková's husband, Bohuslav Horák, avoided arrest in 1949, escaping to West Germany and later settling in the United States.

Their daughter, Jana, aged 16 at the time of her mother's execution, and subsequently raised by her aunt, was not able to join her father in the US until 1968, where she proceeded to have a family with three grandchildren.