Death sentence for 'meat scandal' annulled 40 years after man hanged

Yesterday the Supreme Court decided that the executed death penalty and four life sentences passed forty years ago in so called 'meat scandal' were a heavy violation of law. "This is a rehabilitation of the Polish administration of justice," said judge Stanisław Zabłock, justifying the verdict. In 1965 ten people were charged with taking bribes from butchers shop managers. Stanisław Wawrzecki, the then head of the Warsaw Miejski Handel Mięsem, was hanged for taking 3.5 million old złoty. After forty years the appeal was made by the Public Interest Ombudsman to annul the verdict at the request of the families of the accused. After the trial Stanisław Wawrzecki's son Paweł Wawrzecki said: "It was a judicial crime, which should be dealt with in the Institute of National Remembrance." (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 2) A.F.