Russian court refuses to hear Poland massacre case

Reuters
Mon Jul 7, 2008

A Russian court on Monday refused to consider a request for a criminal
investigation into the execution of thousands of Polish army officers
executed by the Soviet Union in a World War Two massacre.

After blaming Nazi Germany for the Katyn massacre for decades, the
Soviet Union admitted 18 years ago that its forces were responsible
but none of the culprits has ever been identified and investigations
have been shelved.

The families of some of the victims are trying to use the Russian
courts to force prosecutors to launch a new investigation into a
massacre seen in Poland as a symbol of the repression the country
suffered under Soviet domination.

In an earlier ruling, a court refused to hear the request. Lawyers
for the relatives appealed but a higher court on Monday upheld the
earlier ruling, said a lawyer for the relatives.

"The Moscow City Court left that decision unchanged," lawyer Anna
Stavitskaya told Reuters.

"We will apply now to the district military court … We think
there are all legal grounds to satisfy our request (for a new
investigation). But it is hard to say what the court will decide,"
she said.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski has described the 1940 massacre
at Katyn and two other sites — in which 15,000 Polish officers,
intellectuals and officials were shot and thrown into pits — as an
"act of genocide".

Russia’s reluctance to declassify all documents on the massacre has
angered Warsaw, clouding relations that have also been tense because
of disputes over trade, energy and the U.S. missile shield that may
be stationed on Polish soil.

The massacre victims were captured after the Soviet Union invaded
Poland in 1939 under a pact between Adolf Hitler and Soviet leader
Josef Stalin.

Their killing eliminated a swathe of potential opposition to Soviet
domination of Poland.

Advancing Nazi troops found the mass graves, in western Russia,
when Hitler later invaded the Soviet Union.

Only in 1990 did the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, reveal
that Stalin’s NKVD secret police had been responsible.