Poland Drops Its Slander Case Against Walesa

WARSAW — A government prosecutor dropped charges of criminal slander against Lech Walesa on the opening day of his trial Tuesday in Gdansk, and the Solidarity founder quickly hailed the decision as the “first step toward compromise” that the Polish authorities have taken since martial law was imposed in 1981.

After a brief courtroom appearance and a long recess, the prosecutor said that election officials who brought the slander charges should consider themselves “satisfied” that Walesa did not intend to defame them when he questioned the official results of parliamentary elections last October.

The charges, which carried a maximum penalty of two years in prison or a heavy fine, would thus be dropped, the prosecutor said.

The government contends that 79% of the electorate turned out despite Solidarity’s call for a boycott. Using its own monitoring of select polling places, with data reportedly fed to a clandestine computer center in Warsaw, Solidarity estimated the turnout at only 66%.

The presiding panel of three judges ordered an indefinite suspension of the trial. Polish observers said this means that the authorities have effectively abandoned the case against Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his leadership of Solidarity, the now-outlawed independent trade union, in its quest for democratic reforms.

“Reason has won,” a buoyant Walesa declared as he emerged from the courtroom to the cheers of about 100 supporters.

Interned for 11 Months

Walesa added that “it is the first step toward compromise since the 13th of December,” the date in 1981 when Solidarity, the first independent union movement in postwar Eastern Europe, was suppressed under martial law (lifted in 1983).

As the leader of the movement’s 10 million members, Walesa was interned for 11 months, but he had never before been brought to trial.

A quick end to the slander trial had been widely expected, as Polish authorities seemed to realize, belatedly, that it held the potential for a propaganda disaster.

Last month, the authorities summoned the 42-year-old Walesa to court for a proceeding that bore all the earmarks of an elaborate show trial, seemingly aimed at trying to discredit him.

Then, two weeks ago, the authorities seemed to undergo a change of heart. Some Communist party officials let it be known that the idea of a trial was a “mistake,” as one put it.

Diplomatic observers said the government seemed to realize at the last minute that a patently groundless trial of the most popular man in Poland was ill-advised at a time when it is seeking new credits in the West and membership in the International Monetary Fund.