Stanislaw Pyjas
Twenty new witnesses, repeated examination of injuries and undisclosed documents have turned up new leads in the Stanislaw Pyjas case – a student murdered in 1977 by the Communist secret police.
“Several witnesses, maybe because of remorse, after several years of silence decided to testify. Some, however, are afraid of former secret police members who may still be influential,” said Ireneusz Kunert, prosecutor from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a historical agency dedicated to uncovering Nazi and Communist crimes.
Investigators claim that testimonies of two witnesses are so crucial that, if they had been known back in 1977, immediately after Pyjas’ assassination, the then-prosecutors would have probably been unable to discontinue the trial. Part of the testimonies will help verify the account of events given by Leslaw Maleszka, Pyjas’ friend from Krakow’s Jagiellonian University and a long-time Communist secret services informer. “Maleszka’s version differs from the testimonies of new witnesses,” said Kunert.
The testimony of Wojciech Radomski, Pyjas’ friend, now living in the US, may also shed some light on the grim events from 1977 as he was one of the last people who saw Pyjas before his death. The Institute of National Remembrance will also interrogate Pyjas’ mother and sister, which has not been done before.
A third autopsy, ordered by the IPN, and an examination of the to-date undisclosed documents may also help establish who is actually responsible for the murder of Stanislaw Pyjas.
Stanislaw Pyjas, a Jagiellonian University student, was a sympathizer of the Workers’ Defence Committee, KOR, a democratic opposition movement in then-communist Poland. The 24-year-old Pyjas’ body was found on 7 May 1977 in a staircase in a Krakow apartment house.
According to official statements, Pyjas died from injuries sustained in a drunken fall down the stairs but it was suspected that the student was killed by or on the orders of the communist Security Services.
Investigation into the Pyjas murder was dropped four times due to lack of evidence. New testimonies may be a turning point in the three-decade long case.
The murder of Stanislaw Pyjas and his friendship with Bronislaw Wildstein, opposition activist and journalist, and Leslaw Maleszka, a communist secret police informer and later journalist, inspired a documentary titled Three Mates, made by Ewa Stankiewicz and Anna Ferens. (mg/ab/mmj)