A historian at the Institute of the National Remembrance (IPN), Antoni Dudek, believes that new evidence in the case of Father Jerzy Popieluszko’s murder in 1984 is “not credible”.
The new evidence, revealed by IPN last weekend, on the anniversary of the priest’s murder by communist secret services, suggested that Popieluszko died under different circumstances than previously thought.
In the original trial, held in Torun, central Poland, communist secret services (SB) officers Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek Pekala and Waldemar Chmielewski were charged with murdering the priest on October 19, 1984 by beating the chaplain to death and dumping him in a reservoir near Wloclawek, central Poland.
It has long been argued that many more people were involved in the murder. The new evidence was reported to have shown that Popieluszko had been imprisoned and even tortured for five days before he was murdered and dumped in the River Wistula north of Warsaw. It has also been claimed that the whole process was supervised by KGB officers from Moscow.
Dudek stressed that the new theories are highly disputable. He believes that the responsible officers couldn’t have been intimidated to the extent that they took the full responsibility for the murder they did not commit.
At the same time the historian does not exclude that there were more people involved in the crime who are now afraid that the truth will come out and are trying to intimidate the witnesses.
The evidence suggests that not all people directly responsible for Popieluszko’s death have been brought to book, Dudek said. He added that it is highly probable that the full truth will ever be known about the crime, similarly “as is case of President Kennedy’s murder,” he said. (jm/pg)