Polish Officials Call In Walesa for Questioning

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa has been summoned for questioning at the Gdansk prosecutor’s office and faces charges of inciting public unrest, a woman who answered his phone said today.

The official Polish news agency, PAP, said three other prominent Solidarity activists were formally arrested today in connection with a private meeting they held Wednesday with Walesa.

The woman who answered Walesa’s phone said a uniformed policeman delivered the summons to him shortly after 4 p.m. today at his Gdansk apartment.

“Walesa has been summoned to the prosecutor’s office in Gdansk on Saturday at 10 a.m. as a suspect,” said the woman, who did not reveal her name.

‘Public Unrest’

PAP said the three activists held their meeting to organize a Feb. 28 protest strike against food prices. The three--Adam Michnik, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk and Bogdan Lis were charged by the Gdansk prosecutor’s office with undertaking actions aimed at “causing public unrest” and organizing illegal protest actions, the news agency said.

The charges carry a penalty of up to three years in prison under Poland’s penal code.

Four other senior Solidarity figures were also detained Wednesday after police broke up the union meeting in a private apartment in the Baltic port city. PAP did not say whether the other four activists faced the same charges.

Walesa, who initially was released immediately after the police raid, said he had no immediate comment on the arrests of his comrades.

Needs Time to Think

“I need time to think this over,” said Walesa, contacted by telephone at his Gdansk apartment before the report about his own summons.

PAP said that Michnik, Frasyniuk and Lis had repeatedly violated the law since their release from prison last year under a government amnesty for political prisoners.