Warsaw. The murder of the Jaroszewicz family. There is a date when the verdict will be announced

On Wednesday, after almost 6 hours, the closing arguments in the trial ended, among others. for the murder in 1992 of former Prime Minister of the Polish People's Republic Piotr Jaroszewicz and his wife Alicja Solska-Jaroszewicz. That day, the defense lawyers of Robert S., Dariusz S. and Marcin B., accused in this trial, delivered their speeches. The defense lawyers asked for acquittal and said, among others: about a “staged case” and a “hunt” for the main defendant, Robert S.

At the previous hearing on October 28 their final speeches were delivered by, among others, prosecutors who demanded a total life sentence for Robert S., accused of, among others, for the murder of the Jaroszewicz couple, and 7 and 5.5 years of imprisonment for Dariusz S. and Marcin B. All the accused were members of the so-called a karate gang that committed several dozen robberies in the 1990s.

At the end of the hearing, prosecutors and the representative of the former prime minister's son, Andrzej Jaroszewicz, attorney Beata Czechowicz, commented on the speeches of the defense lawyers of the accused Robert S., Dariusz S., and Marcin B..

Prosecutor Katarzyna Płończyk assessed that the terms used by the defense, such as “forcing explanations” or “hunting a person” and “breaking an innocent person” are non-substantive arguments – ad hominem, which, in her opinion, are “an expression of weakness and lack of specific arguments.”

In turn, according to attorney Czechowicz, the defense lawyers tried to “create the impression of chaos”, and Marcin B. and Dariusz S. testified in a “very precise way” about the circumstances of the events of 1992.

According to defense attorney Robert S., attorney Dawid Dąbrowski, in this case the prosecutor's office wants to “convince people of a hypothesis that is simply contrary to the truth”, and the actions of the prosecutor's office in the investigation “were an attempt to break an innocent man.” According to the defense attorney, his client Robert S. was not at the scene of the murder of the Jaroszewicz couple.

The lawyer pointed out that the factual basis for Robert S.'s indictment “is characterized by extraordinary weakness.” He assessed that the versions of events given as the factual basis for the indictment “basically do not coincide with the material of the original investigation (from the 1990s – ed.) regarding the murder of the Jaroszewicz family, which, in fact, had already been conducted from the very beginning.” In his opinion, the evidentiary activities carried out in the investigation of the accused in this case were “directed” and de facto it was a “hunt for Robert S.”

All defenders drew attention to this last aspect. They pointed out that the evidentiary proceedings did not bring anything new to this case compared to the 1990s, and the only new element were the explanations of Dariusz S. and Marcin B., in which they spoke about their participation in the robbery in 1992. In the defense's opinion, these however, the explanations did not result from their participation in this event, but from procedural calculations related to, among others, with the desire to mitigate penalties in other cases.

– Seven years for a vivid imagination is a lot – said Tomasz Ode, Dariusz S.'s defender, ironically.

In October, the prosecutor's office argued that Dariusz S. and Marcin B. deserved extraordinary leniency. “Without the explanations of these people, the matters covered by this indictment would remain unresolved, and the families would never know the truth,” the prosecutor emphasized then.

The court will announce the verdict on Friday, November 22 at 2 p.m

The case concerns one of the most outrageous crimes of the early 1990s. Piotr Jaroszewicz – Prime Minister of the Polish People's Republic in 1970-1980 – was murdered together with his wife Alicja Solska-Jaroszewicz in their home in Anin on the night of August 31 to September 1, 1992. Moreover, the indictment concerns the murder of Mr. and Mrs. S. in 1991 in Gdynia and the attempted murder of a man in Izabelin in 1993.

The prosecutor's office announced a breakthrough in the case in 2018. Finally, they accused Robert S. of strangling Piotr Jaroszewicz and shooting his wife in their home in Anin. Robert S. is also accused of the crimes from Gdynia and Izabelin. Dariusz S. and Marcin B. are accused of complicity in the murder of the former prime minister.