May 31, 2007, 10:31 GMT
Warsaw - Members of a communist-era special forces militia responsible for gunning down nine protesting miners during Poland's infamous 1981 martial law crack-down were sentenced to prison Thursday, in a dramatic case which spent 14 years before the courts.
ZOMO special forces militia commander Romuald Cieslak was convicted for his role in the operation in which nine protesting miners were killed at the Wujek coal mine on December 16, 1981.
Justice Monika Sliwinska sentenced Cieslak to 11 years behind bars.
The bloody massacre took place in Poland's southern Katowice coal basin only days after the December 13 imposition of martial law and a crackdown against the anti-communist Solidarity trade union, the first and only free trade union in the entire communist bloc.
Militia units used live ammunition to quell a protest by Solidarity-allied miners, killing nine and injuring dozens.
Seventeen militiamen stood trial in the case for a third time.
Applause and cheers by the families of the victims erupted in the courtroom on Thursday as the Katowice district court sentenced 12 of the men to 2.5 years behind bars and another two to three years incarceration. One defendant was acquitted of the charges.
A lawyer for the convicted men said Thursday he would appeal the guilty verdicts.
The court had been handling the case for 14 years. Previous trials had proven inconclusive.
Commentators pointed out that no high-ranking communist-era official has ever been charged or tried in connection with the Wujek mine deaths or other communist-era massacres.
General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist-era president has publicly accepted 'political' and 'moral' responsibility for the death of anti-communist protesters but has argued he cannot be held criminally responsible.
He argues that in all cases militiamen shot in self-defence when faced with violent workers.
Jaruzelski is currently facing criminal charges for having imposed martial law in 1981 in order to stage a bloody crackdown on the nascent anti-communist Solidarity opposition movement.
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