Security Police Suspected in Mysterious Death : Polish Priest Is Mourned by Thousands

Thousands of mourners turned out Thursday for the funeral of a 74-year-old Roman Catholic priest whose mysterious death last week has touched off widespread suspicion among Poles that he may have been slain by security police.

The body of Father Stefan Niedzielak was found Saturday morning in his small apartment across the street from St. Charles Borromeo Church and Warsaw’s oldest cemetery, where the priest had been active as a supporter of various opposition movements and had campaigned successfully for a memorial to Poles killed in the Soviet Union in World War II.

The Warsaw prosecutor’s office, in what it called “preliminary” findings, said the priest died of a broken neck, but other circumstances surrounding his death remain clouded by conflicting reports from church and law enforcement officials. The prosecutor’s office says results of laboratory tests must be completed before a full report is issued.

A lawyer appointed by the church to witness the autopsy said the cause of death appeared to be “a karate blow.” The administrator of the Warsaw Catholic diocese, Father Zdzislaw Krol, later appeared to back away from that assessment, warning against “misinterpretation of the words we say here, which are sometimes out of context.”

He added that the police are working “honestly and want to resolve this case.”

Poles are especially sensitive to the safety of activist priests since the 1984 murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko, an energetic supporter of the banned Solidarity trade union who was beaten to death by secret police agents, three of whom were convicted and sent to prison for the killing.

Suspicion among some Poles centers on the theory that hard-line internal security police, opposed to recent government moves to forge an alliance with Solidarity, may have murdered the priest to provoke trouble between the authorities and the opposition.

Told of Threats

Father Krol acknowledged that Niedzielak, on the morning before his death, had spoken to him of threats against his life.

“ ‘I have a very difficult situation,’ ” Krol quoted Niedzielak as saying. “ ‘They will kill me.’ ”

“I took it as a joke,” Krol said. “I didn’t take it as a topic for further discussion. That’s why I didn’t talk with him about it. Now, after it all happened, it gives me no peace.”

Friends of the priest are now coming to Krol to report that the Niedzielak had spoken often of death threats and threatening letters.

Although Niedzielak was far less active than dozens of other younger priests in Poland, he served as chaplain of the “Home Army” veterans of World War II and was instrumental in creating a shrine in the cemetery to the memory of Polish soldiers and other citizens who died in Soviet captivity in the war.

“This may not have been to everybody’s liking,” Wojciech Ziembinski, a friend of Niedzielak, told Reuters news agency Wednesday. “Two weeks ago, he told a friend the threats had become increasingly frequent and crude. One said, ‘If you don’t calm down you’ll croak like Popieluszko.’ ”

None of the priest’s friends has indicated the source of the threats or made it clear whether Niedzielak knew who was threatening him.

Krol said that Popieluszko received similar threats before his death and that such threats are received frequently by activist priests.

The crowd at the funeral spilled across the street in front of the church, blocking traffic for more than an hour, and filled the adjacent cemetery. Home Army veterans lined the church aisle with their regimental flags and stood at attention with old campaign medals pinned to their lapels. In the street, a group of mourners lifted a banner with the slogan last seen at the Popieluszko funeral: “You Killed the Body but You Cannot Kill the Spirit.”

Inside the church, a eulogy was read by Cardinal Jozef Glemp, the primate of Poland.

“He was man of courage and a man of action,” the cardinal said. “He was a prominent patriot who loved his motherland. The secret of his passing away is known to God.”