I beg your pardon
President Kwaniewski's decision to pardon Sławomir Sikora drew praise from every corner of the political establishment, as well as the public.
Sikora was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment in 1997 for killing two gangsters who had been blackmailing him. Sikora and his business partners, Artur Biliński and Tomasz K., got involved with a Silesian gangster, who one day demanded that they pay back a non-existent debt. He and a partner blackmailed them, threatened to kill them and forced them to commit crimes such as forging checks.
In March 1994, after over a year of harassment, the three businessmen killed their oppressors, decapitated them and dumped the bodies into the Vistula River. After a few days the bodies surfaced. Police detectives quickly caught the three, who admitted to the killing. Sikora and Biliński were both sentenced to 25 years in jail, while Tomasz K. received a 12-year term, later shortened to 11-and-a-half years. The whole story inspired director Krzysztof Krauze to make the acclaimed and successful movie, Dług (The Debt).
Kwaniewski had twice refused to pardon Sikora, once in 2000 and again in 2001. Now the businessmen-turned-murderer's case has surfaced again, this time amid the latest controversy surrounding the pardon request of Zbigniew Sobotka, a Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) politician sent to jail for tipping off political cronies to a police raid.
Law and Justice's (PiS) spokesperson Adam Bielan stated a few weeks ago that once in office, President-elect Lech Kaczyński would pardon Sikora if Kwaniewski didn't.
