Martial law interior minister receives suspended prison sentence

Protestors hold up photos of victims of martial law outside court: photo - PAP/Bartłomiej Zborowski

The 85 year-old Czeslaw Kiszczak was not in court to hear the sentence read out against him, in a trial which has been ongoing for the last three years.

The court however acquitted Stanislaw Kania, the former first secretary of the central committee of the communist party (PZPR), and the case against the former member of the communist-era State Council, Eugenia Kempara was discontinued due to statute of limitations.

All three defendants were charged with the illegal imposition of martial law and restrictions of freedoms against Polish citizens, especially members of the Solidarity trade union.

Kiszczak was a member of the Military Council of National Salvation (WRON) which administered martial law from 1981 to 1983. and personally issued the order to pacify striking miners at the Wujek coalmine on 16 December 1981, which led to the deaths of nine of the protestors.

He received a two year suspended sentence in 2004 for the Wujek massacre.

The trial against the main defendant, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was the leader of communist Poland and who imposed martial law and a brutal crackdown against Solidarity and opponents of the regime, was suspended last year due to ill health. (pg)