During a visit to Chicago, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said Tuesday that his government will continue to seek the extradition of a Glenview man accused of slaying Poland’s national police chief, even though a Chicago judge dismissed the case in July for lack of evidence.
In an interview with the Tribune at the Fairmont Chicago Hotel, the Polish leader — who was in Chicago to speak to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and met with business leaders here — also touched on topics ranging from Poles’ frustrations with obtaining U.S. visas to the presence of the central European nation’s troops in Iraq.
But the 1998 slaying of Marek Papala, whose Polish post was equivalent to being head of the FBI, drew an especially passionate reaction from Kaczynski, a former attorney general in Poland who investigated the case.
“From my point of view, the case is absolutely clear,” Kaczynski said, speaking through an interpreter.
“The decision [by the judge in the slaying case] together with the justifications were really surprising. They were shocking,” Kaczynski said.
Glenview businessman Edward Mazur was arrested in the case in October but was freed in July after a federal judge in Chicago refused to order his return to Poland to face charges he solicited Papala’s murder.
“In this case,” Kaczynski said, “there was a clear demonstration of the very close links between the gangsters and parts of the members of the former political elite linked to communists — not only on the political, [but] on the business side.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys called the evidence against Mazur weak and Poland’s key informant unreliable.
Kaczynski conceded that the key witness against Mazur was a “murderer,” but added that “it’s not the only evidence.”
The court ruling was a blow for Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who came to power in 2005 on a pledge to root out corruption. The extradition and prosecution of Mazur, a U.S. citizen, was a centerpiece of their anti-corruption campaign.
Chris Gair, Mazur’s lawyer, said the only way the Polish government can pursue the case is to provide the U.S. government with new evidence and ask the U.S. attorney’s office to refile the case. But he said that scenario was unlikely.
“The court found there was no evidence after nine years of investigation,” Gair said.
Randy Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said nothing further had been filed in the case since the judge’s ruling.
Supporting Iraq
Kaczynski said that if his party wins the parliamentary elections in Poland next month, Polish troops probably will remain in Iraq. With the drawdown of British troops, the Polish contingent of nearly 1,000 troops would be among the largest.
“I think that in 2008, we will still be in Iraq,” he said. “How long after that, it’s hard to predict, because that would be prolongation by three years of the original time of our mission.”
In 2005, the previous government in Poland had decided to withdraw troops but the current government extended the deployment, the president noted.
Public opinion polls show a large majority of Poles oppose their troops’ presence in Iraq, but Kaczynski said that opposition has not been a major political force so far.
“It depends on how active or passive is this opposition,” he said. “And in this case, it is rather passive so far.”
But despite its support for the United States in Iraq and elsewhere, Poland has had difficulty buying the military equipment it needs, even though it is a member of NATO, he said.
“I have talked with the leaders of a number of states which are much more critical with respect to America, and yet they enjoy tremendous military support from America as compared to us,” Kaczynski said.
Visa woes
Many Poles have expressed exasperation with the difficulty they face in getting visas to the United States. They face long lines, an interview many consider demeaning and a seemingly arbitrary verdict that most other European Union citizens don’t experience.
But Kaczynski said the issue is dwindling as new opportunities open in Great Britain, Ireland and elsewhere in the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004.
“The pressure on Polish people to come to work in the United States has drastically decreased with the opening of the European Union,” he said. “Now there’s ample opportunity in Europe which is comparable with what the States can offer.”
The Mazur case is not the only extradition tangle that has involved local authorities recently. France has resisted Cook County efforts to extradite Hans Peterson, a dual citizen who reportedly confessed to the October murder of Loop dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet.
And Marco Morales, jailed last week in Mexico, faces possible extradition to Chicago nearly a decade after he fled the U.S. to avoid testifying about bribery in Mayor Richard Daley’s administration.
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rworking@tribune.com
IN THE WEB EDITION
Watch the Tribune interview of Polish President Lech Kaczynski as he discusses the slaying of a Polish national police chief and demands the extradition of a Glenview businessman in the case, at
chicagotribune.com/poland
