Trial of the Sixteen: Encyclopedia II - Trial of the Sixteen - History

Trial of the Sixteen - History

In February 1945 the Government Delegate together with most members of the Council of National Unity and the C-i-C of the Armia Krajowa were invited by Soviet general Ivan Serov on behalf of Joseph Stalin to a conference on their eventual entry to the Soviet-backed Provisional Government. They were presented with a warrant of safety, yet they were arrested in Pruszków by the NKVD on March 27 and brought to Moscow for interrogation.

After several months of brutal interrogation and torture they were presented with the forged accusations of:

• collaboration with Nazi Germany
• carrying-over intelligence and sabotage at the rear of the Red Army
• terrorism
• planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany
• owning a radio transmitter
• describing the liberation of Poland by the Red Army as a “new occupation”
• dissolution of the Armia Krajowa in order to continue the fight against the Soviet Union

The trial took place between June 18 and 21, 1945, at the presence of foreign press and observers from the United Kingdom and USA. The date was chosen carefully as at the same time a conference on creation of the Soviet-backed Polish puppet government was organized.

Immediately after the kidnapping of all the leaders, the Polish government in exile sent a protest note to Washington and London demanding their release. At first the Soviets declared that the whole case is a bluff by the “Fascist Polish government”. When they finally admitted that the leaders had been arrested (on May 5), the American envoy of Harry S. Truman, Harry Lloyd Hopkins, was told by Joseph Stalin that “there is no point in linking the case of the Trial of the Sixteen with the support for the Soviet-backed government of Poland because the sentences will not be high”. Both British and American governments shared this view.

All but one of the defendants were forced to admit to the alleged crimes and on June 21 the verdict was issued. According to the international law the trial should not have taken place. The Soviet Union kidnapped and sentenced a group of citizens of a foreign country whose alleged crimes were committed on a foreign land. They were deprived of the basic human rights and tortured. General Okulicki's witnesses were not allowed to enter the court, which was equal to breaking even the Soviet law.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki