The Silesian Office of The National Remembrance Institute is considering charging former communist ruler general Wojciech Jaruzelski with illegal introduction of martial law in December 1981.
However, in the opinion of its spokesperson Ewa Koj, the official indictment might not be filed in October, as suggested by the press. Before that could happen thousands of documents have to be reviewed by the Institute’s prosecutors to confirm the absence of arguments used by the general in the past that he made the decision to avert the imminent and direct threat of Soviet and Warsaw Pact military intervention in Poland.
Jaruzelski claimed he had chosen the “lesser evil” to avoid bloodshed. As historians have already studied the material thoroughly, there seems little chance of the prosecutors finding new items of evidence supporting the general’s theory.
The National Remembrance Institute is also to press charges against 10 other living members of the so-called Military Council of National Salvation headed by general Jaruzelski, which officially proclaimed martial law in Poland resulting in the delegalization of Solidarity and the curtailment of basic civic freedoms.
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