Key Solidarity Figure Unexpectedly Freed

Bogdan Lis, a leading figure in the outlawed Solidarity trade union, was unexpectedly released from prison Thursday under a government amnesty.

Lis, who was a founding member of the union’s underground organization, is the first prominent Solidarity activist to be released under the week-old amnesty, which earlier appeared to have been designed to exclude Poland’s best-known political prisoners.

His release came one day after the United States and Poland signed an agreement in Warsaw rescheduling $1.7 billion in Polish debts guaranteed by the U.S. government. It was the first such agreement Washington has acceded to since it imposed economic sanctions in 1981, after the martial-law suppression of Solidarity.

The timing of the agreement and the release of one of Poland’s most popular opposition figures stirred speculation that the two events were linked and raised hopes that other leading activists among an estimated 350 political prisoners may also be freed.

March Unmolested

Meanwhile, about 1,500 Solidarity supporters marched unmolested in downtown Warsaw for the first time since 1981 in what political observers saw as another policy change to improve the government’s image.

The marchers carried signs demanding the release of all political prisoners, and they chanted pro-Solidarity slogans.

From Lis’ home in Gdansk, on the Baltic coast, he told reporters that prison officials came to his cell Thursday morning and told him he was to be freed immediately under the amnesty act, which took effect July 23. He said the officials imposed no specific conditions on his release.

“Nobody asked me to sign anything,” Lis said. “They just quoted a passage from the law saying that if I return to the road of crime, I’ll be back behind bars.”

Under the current amnesty--the third and most restrictive the Polish government has proclaimed in the last four years--activists charged with illegal union activities, plotting to overthrow the Communist system or other major political offenses could be freed only under “especially justified” circumstances, which the law did not define.

Illegal Union Activity

Lis, who had served half of a two-year sentence on charges of illegal union activity, became eligible in June for release under existing law on grounds of good behavior. However, he said prison officials told him he was being freed under the “especially justified” provision of the amnesty.

A close friend and aide to Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, Lis remained in hiding during and after martial law, from December, 1981, until he was arrested in June, 1984. He was held six months and released that December when treason charges against him were dropped.

He and two other prominent activists, Adam Michnik and Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, were convicted in a Gdansk court in June, 1985, of illegal union activities, a charge that grew out of calls for nationwide strikes to protest food price increases.