25 January 2006

The parliamentary group of the Law and Justice (PiS) party has prepared a draft law under which communist Poland's secret service officers guilty of communist crimes would be deprived of their old-age pension rights. According to the draft law, communist crimes are those committed by officers of the communist state from Sept. 17, 1939 to Dec. 31, 1989 involving persecution or other forms of human rights violations against individuals or groups of people, violations which were regarded as crimes under the Polish criminal code in force at the time when the crime was committed. Under the draft law, the payment of pensions would be suspended to officers who have been charged with a communist crime, but so far evaded justice.

Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro said the law would enable the suspension of pensions to Stalinist criminals wanted by Poland, for example Salomon Morel and Helena Wolińska-Brus. Morel, presently residing in Israel and former commander of the Stalinist camp in Świętochłowice, receives a pension of around zl.5,000. Wolińska-Brus, now residing in Oxford, is the Stalinist prosecutor who arrested Home Army (AK) General August Emil Fieldorf, who was then jailed and executed by communist authorities. She receives a pension of around zl.1,500. Israel refused to extradite Morel to Poland. The UK has not yet replied to Poland's request for Wolińska-Brus's extradition.

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