Death Penalty Sought for Polish Captain

A Polish government prosecutor Tuesday demanded the death penalty for Capt. Grzegorz Piotrowski, the secret police officer accused of organizing the murder of a popular pro-Solidarity priest, and asked the court to sentence three other officers to the maximum 25 years in prison.

The prosecution, summarizing its conclusions after 21 days of trial testimony, said all four security service officers were guilty of premeditated murder in the death last October of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, the unofficial chaplain of the outlawed Solidarity independent trade union movement.

Millions of devoutly Roman Catholic Poles now accept the priest as a martyr to the cause of Solidarity and its principles of democratic reform in Poland.

The prosecution said the evidence “neither confirmed nor excluded” the involvement of still-unknown instigators outside the Ministry of Interior.

“Perhaps we are talking here about specific persons, but one thing is certain. The higher-ups are not in the Interior Ministry,” the government’s chief prosecutor, Leszek Pietrasinski, told the court in the northern city of Torun.

The prosecutor appeared to plant the seeds for a government propaganda line by hinting broadly that Capt. Piotrowski was corrupt and may have been vulnerable to Western manipulation, and that Popieluszko was ultimately responsible for his own death.

“The extreme activities of Popieluszko gave birth to the not lesser extremism of this crime,” the prosecutor declared in a 45-minute tirade against the dead priest that repeatedly equated his activities with the action of his murderers. “It is necessary to say these things, despite the fact that one should not speak ill of the dead.”

Found in Reservoir

Capt. Piotrowski was accused of recruiting two subordinates, Lt. Leszek Pekala, 29, and Lt. Waldemar Chmielewski, 32, to abduct and kill Popieluszko. The priest’s bound and beaten body was recovered from a Vistula River reservoir Oct. 30, a sack of stones lashed to the feet.

Col. Adam Pietruszka, 47, deputy head of the department that kept an eye on the church, was accused of aiding and abetting the crime and attempting to cover up the role of the secret police.

The 33-year-old Piotrowski, who has displayed a cool, often haughty attitude of indifference during the trial, appeared stunned as the prosecutor called for his death by hanging. He slumped in his chair, leaned back and stared fixedly ahead, his face flushed.

Piotrowski’s two subordinates showed similar emotion to the call for their 25-year prison terms, the maximum sentence provided by Polish law. Tears streamed down Pekala’s face, and Chmielewski, who has appeared strained and haggard throughout the trial, buried his head between his knees.

Behind the wooden front panel of the defendants’ dock, Col. Pietruszka listened impassively.

The prosecutor said Pietruszka and Piotrowski were blinded by “arrogance and presumption” that led them to commit a crime that sullied the good name of the Polish security service and violated government policy toward the church.

“It should be noted that Popieluszko was also against this policy because he sowed hatred, he slandered, he humiliated, he fueled tensions,” Pietrasinski declared in a booming voice.

“His actions were destructive. . . . Just as he thought that his function would protect him from responsibility, so did the perpetrators,” he added.

It remains to be explained, the prosecutor said, why the officers chose this victim at this time.

“Why did they act in a way which was to the advantage of (Western) centers of subversion,” he asked. “Their choice of victim was no accident, because Popieluszko was a favorite of these subversive centers of propaganda,” he said, as if to suggest the killing was arranged at the West’s behest.