4 Poles Sent to Prison in Priest’s Death

A judge sentenced four secret policemen today to prison terms ranging from 14 to 25 years for the kidnap-murder of a dissident priest but refused to impose the death penalty on the ringleader.

The official state news agency PAP said Capt. Grzegorz Piotrowski was ordered jailed for 25 years instead of sentenced to death, which the prosecution had demanded for masterminding the assassination of Father Jerzy Popieluszko.

Judge Artur Kujawa also sentenced Police Col. Adam Pietruszka to 25 years for inciting the killing and handed out prison terms of 15 years to Lt. Leszek Pekala and 14 years to Lt. Waldemar Chmielewski.

The news agency did not explain why the judge refused to order Piotrowski executed, although earlier the Roman Catholic Church, which is opposed to capital punishment, had said it would appeal any hanging order.

Sermons for Solidarity

The slaying of Popieluszko shocked the predominantly Roman Catholic population. He had drawn crowds to his Warsaw church with his ringing sermons in defense of the Solidarity trade union, which was suppressed in a martial law crackdown in December, 1981.

The priest was kidnaped last Oct. 19, beaten and gagged and dumped in a reservoir. His body was retrieved Oct. 30.

Pietruszka had pleaded innocent, and lawyers for the three other officers, who maintained that the priest’s death was an accident and that they had wanted only to intimidate him, had demanded that the murder charges be dropped.

The four may appeal the sentence--first to the Supreme Court and then to the Polish president for clemency.

The trial began with the prosecution’s saying the death plot originated at high levels of government, but the defendants later said Pietruszka was the highest official involved in the crime.

Only 4 Involved, Officials Say

Polish authorities maintain that the evidence that emerged in the trial, which began Dec. 27, demonstrated that only the four defendants were involved in the murder.

Military leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, who assailed the murder as a provocative act that opposed the interests of Poland, assumed immediate personal control of the Interior Ministry, which controls the secret police.

Lawyers representing Popieluszko’s family have implied that the plot was hatched in another country and maintain that a murder plan could not have originated in Poland because it was not in the state’s interest.

An autopsy revealed Popieluszko was hit at least 14 times with a club and fists by his kidnapers. The priest was bound and gagged when he was dumped into the reservoir and died of suffocation, the autopsy showed.

The trial was unprecedented in its prosecution of top officers of the Interior Ministry, which is usually above reproach in the Soviet Bloc.