Poland’s Last Communist Chief Buys More Time for His Trial

A Polish court Friday postponed the murder trial of the country’s last Communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, over the killing of 44 protesting shipyard workers in 1970.

It was the latest of several delays in the prosecution’s efforts to hold the elderly general and his Communist comrades responsible for the violent suppression of a popular revolt that ultimately led to the end of Communist rule in Poland.

Judge Piotr Wachowicz adjourned the court session until June 19 because one of nine former Communist officials who are to be tried along with Jaruzelski was absent due to health problems.

Proceedings against Jaruzelski, who was defense minister in 1970 and became Communist Party leader in 1981, began Tuesday after a break since 1999, but legal wrangling also resumed.

Jaruzelski’s lawyers had filed a motion requesting more evidence from prosecutors before charges could be brought. When that motion was rejected, they said Thursday that they were resigning.

Jaruzelski, 77, now has seven days to find a new defense team, or he will be represented by lawyers appointed by the court.

The stone-faced Jaruzelski, his face hidden behind his trademark dark glasses, declined comment.

Jaruzelski’s trial opened in 1996 but has been repeatedly adjourned because of his declining health and wrangling over whether he should be tried in a military or civil court.

Jaruzelski is believed to be suffering from back and kidney problems as well as high blood pressure.

He is accused of responsibility for the deaths of 44 shipyard workers shot by security forces in several Baltic cities during protests against food price increases.

The massacre enraged Poles and led many to fight communism, especially in the Baltic shipyards.

Lech Walesa, founder of Solidarity--the movement that eventually toppled Communist rule in 1989--was a member of the Gdansk shipyard’s strike committee in 1970.

Jaruzelski imposed martial law to crack down on Solidarity in 1981, but in 1989 he authorized the talks with the opposition that ended Communist rule.

The continued efforts to try Jaruzelski divide contemporary Poland, with the ruling right-wing government, rooted in the Solidarity camp, insisting that he should be held to account for quashing popular unrest by force.

The ex-Communist leftist opposition, which is expected to win a general election this year, says the last Communist strongman should be judged by history.