Jaruzelski trial gets green light
An appeals court cleared the way for Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland’s last communist leader, to be tried for imposing martial law in 1981 as part of a brutal crackdown on democracy activists.
Eight other former communist officials also will be tried over the crackdown, which put thousands of democracy activists in internment camps. About 100 Poles died during the clampdown.
Jaruzelski, 84, has long argued that martial law was the only way to prevent a Soviet invasion to crack down on the pro-democracy Solidarity labor movement.
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