POLAND: Senior Police Officer Pleads Innocent : Polish Colonel Denies He Ordered Force Against Priest

The most senior of four secret police officers on trial for the murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko took the stand for the first time Thursday to deny that he ever suggested using force against the pro-Solidarity priest.

Col. Adam Pietruszka, the deputy head of the security service department that monitors Poland’s powerful Roman Catholic Church, pleaded innocent to charges of aiding and abetting the murder and accused his subordinate, Capt. Grzegorz Piotrowski, of organizing the attack on his own initiative.

The 47-year-old colonel, speaking in a bland voice and lacing his remarks with ideological jargon, told a court in the northern city of Torun that to have condoned the use of force against Popieluszko would have violated the principles of Marxist “humanism.”

“Having been brought up according to the principles of socialist humanism, we abide by the conviction that political enemies must be fought through socio-political argument--by the force of argument rather than by the fist,” Pietruszka said.

His testimony indicated that, unlike his three co-defendants, he had no intention of passing blame to higher authority for a murder that Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski’s regime has branded as a “political provocation” meant to destabilize Poland.

The colonel praised Capt. Piotrowski, the accused leader of the three-man squad that kidnaped and killed the priest last October, as a model officer in many ways. But he said that his accuser was a poor administrator who tended to act on his own without obtaining proper clearance.

“He had a tendency to do things without consulting me and would only report to me afterward that he had done things on his own initiative,” Pietruszka said.

The colonel’s testimony came in the ninth day of a trial that has opened a unique window on the internal workings of the political police in a Soviet Bloc country. It clashed with assertions by Capt. Piotrowski that the colonel had pressured his subordinates to take forceful action against Popieluszko and another anti-Communist priest, frightening them into submission if not killing them.

On Tuesday, the captain quoted Pietruszka as having said in a meeting in September called to discuss Popieluszko and a second anti-Communist priest in Warsaw, Father Stanislaw Malkowski:

“Enough of games with Popieluszko and Malkowski. They should be shaken to bring them to the verge of a heart attack. They should be given the final warning.”

Capt. Piotrowski said that Col. Pietruszka pointed toward the ceiling for emphasis as he assured them that forceful action against the two priests had been approved at a high but unspecified level that the captain took to be that of Deputy Minister Wladyslaw Ciaston, head of the Polish security service.

According to court testimony, a third secret police officer who has not been charged with complicity in the murder, Lt. Col. Leszek Wolski, also attended the meeting in which Col. Pietruszka is alleged to have called for a “final warning.” Wolski is scheduled to testify later as a witness.

Piotrowski also testified that Col. Pietruszka once suggested that Popieluszko could be thrown off a train. And when an attempt failed earlier in October to involve the priest’s car in a highway accident, he said that the colonel remarked, “What a pity, it could have been a beautiful accident.”

Brushing aside these accusations, Col. Pietruszka charged that the government’s indictment was “based on slanderous statements by Grzegorz Piotrowski.”

He acknowledged discussing the need to curb the political activism of Popieluszko, Malkowski and other pro-Solidarity priests with Capt. Piotrowski. But he insisted that his proposals were limited to gathering what he called “compromising” information on the priests that could be used to persuade them to stop criticizing the state.

At no time, Col. Pietruszka maintained, “was there any talk or orders to use violence against priests.”

Pietruszka said that he may have used the phrase “verge of a heart attack” in talking about pressuring Popieluszko, but he added that “I use such expressions in a colloquial, metaphorical sense.”

The Polish primate, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, has since banned Father Malkowski from speaking in Warsaw churches, although the priest has nevertheless done so on several occasions.

Earlier in the day, Capt. Piotrowski concluded his testimony by asserting again that the inspiration for an attack on the priest came from his commanding officer. But he admitted that Pietruszka had never explicitly ordered a murder.

“There was never any question of my having been told to liquidate the priest,” he said, arguing again that the death was an accident of circumstances.

Capt. Piotrowski is charged with the murder along with two lieutenants, Waldemar Chmielewski, 29, and Leszek Pekala, 32. The captain said he does not know who among them was directly responsible for the death, but he said it may have been Pekala, who tightened a rope around the priest’s neck. According to the autopsy, Popieluszko died from suffocation or strangulation from a gag, a noose or by choking on his own blood as a result of beatings.

Asked by a judge how he could justify what he knew to be an illegal act, Piotrowski said he believed that an attack on Popieluszko, even one that resulted in his death, was the lesser of two evils.

“I thought this evil would be the lesser evil compared to the whole extent of Popieluszko’s activities. This is why I thought at the time permission had been given for it,” he said, adding: “It wasn’t the custom within the ministry to go higher than your immediate superior with doubts even about controversial orders.”

Piotrowski said that he was “absolutely convinced” that higher authorities had sanctioned the kidnaping, even if Popieluszko died in the process. Doubt began only after the priest’s body had been thrown into a Vistula River reservoir and the three men returned to Warsaw.

“When I saw that (Col.) Pietruszka was evidently frightened, I was certain that I had been cheated,” he said.