Court quits General Kiszczak; photo - PAPA number of prominent politicians and historians have spoken out against yesterday's acquittal of General Czeslaw Kisczczak, cleared in a Warsaw district court of responsibility for the deaths of nine protesting miners in the Wujek coal mine during Martial Law in December 1981.
Prosecutors had tried to prove that a coded message sent by the general to police in Katowice contained a clearance to use live ammunition. Kiszczak denied this.
The acquittal marks the fourth time the general has been in court over the massacre since the collapse of communism in 1989.
“Courts [post 1989] have rarely sentenced the perpetrators of communist crimes, or their accomplices,” claims Lukasz Kaminski, a historian and director of the educational branch of the state-sponsored Instutute of National Independence.
However, Kaminski believes that according to historical research, Kiszczak's responsibility for the crime is transparent.
“Here the role of Kiszczak is quite precisely described and opinions are unlikely to change in his favour.”
Likewise, politicians from several parties have expressed their dissatisfaction with the verdict. Speaker of the Senate and former dissident Bodgan Borusewicz has stated that Kiszczak is guilty of the miners deaths. Mariusz Blaszczak from the Law and Justice Party has voiced that the prosecution should appeal against the verdict.
However, the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party is less critical of the verdict. MP Jerzy Wenderlich maintains that “the judiciary should be trusted.” (nh)
source: IAR