Piotr Jaroszewicz
Piotr Jaroszewicz | |
---|---|
Prime Minister of Poland | |
In office 23 December 1970 – 18 February 1980 | |
Deputy | See list
|
Chairman | Józef Cyrankiewicz Henryk Jabłoński |
First Secretary | Edward Gierek |
Preceded by | Józef Cyrankiewicz |
Succeeded by | Edward Babiuch |
Personal details | |
Born | 8 October 1909 |
Died | 1 September 1992 Warsaw, Poland | (aged 82)
Political party | Polish Workers' Party (until 1948) Polish United Workers' Party |
Spouse | Alicja Solska |
Profession | Teacher, Military |
Signature | |
Life and career
Jaroszewicz was born on 8 October 1909 in
After the war he became the deputy minister of defense (1945–1950). Since 1956 he was the Polish ambassador to
Death
After his departure from office and the party, Jaroszewicz and second wife Alicja Solska settled in the Warsaw suburb of Anin. The couple largely kept to themselves and did not socialize much. Jaroszewicz was obsessed with security; he had a 3.3-metre (11-foot) fence topped with barbed wire installed around their villa. When he walked their Rottweiler, neighbours said, he often carried a pistol with him.[2]
Despite these measures, their son Jan Jaroszewicz found the couple murdered when he entered the house on 3 September 1992. Poison gas had been used to incapacitate the dog. Jaroszewicz's body, found in his upstairs study, had the belt that had been used to strangle him secured by an antique ice axe from his collection. The attackers had also beaten him, yet had bandaged the wounds.[2]
Solska's body was next to her husband's. Her hands had been tied behind her back, and she had been shot in the head at close range with one of the couple's hunting rifles.[2] Investigators believe that she had earlier managed to injure one of the killers during a struggle, since blood from her and an unknown individual were found in another room in the house.[3]
The killers appeared to have searched every room in the house. It was initially reported that they only took what were presumed to have been documents from one safe and left behind valuable old coins and art, suggesting the thieves were not motivated by financial gain.[2] However police records show the thieves actually stole two guns, 5,000 German marks, five gold coins and a ladies' watch.[4]
Friends and family said that Jaroszewicz had been even more paranoid than usual in the days before the murders,[3] which were determined to have occurred on 1 September, two days before the bodies were discovered. The killings received significant media attention in Poland, due both to Jaroszewicz's past leadership and the brutality of the crime. While initial theories suspected that the murders were politically motivated, in 2017 Warsaw police revealed the burglary had been committed by the 'Karate Gang' of Radom, a group of violent criminals active through the 1990s. They had broken into Jaroszewicz's home expecting to find significant sums of money and tortured him in an effort to find it. When Jaroszewicz broke free the gang murdered both him and his wife, then hurriedly left.[4] Several Karate Gang members went on trial for this and other crimes in 2021. They denied any political motivation for the burglary.
See also
- List of prime ministers of Poland
- List of unsolved murders
References
- ISBN 978-3-11-093910-1.
- ^ a b c d Engelberg, Stephen (14 November 1992). "Warsaw Journal; Strange, Brutal Murders, and Everyone's Baffled". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ^ a b "Murder of a Polish ex-premier" [Убийство польского экс-премьера]. Kommersant (in Russian). 7 September 1992. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
Эксперты-криминалисты считают, что перед смертью Алиция успела ранить своего убийцу (в комнате найдена кровь двух групп).
- ^ a b "The Karate gang - They killed the former prime minister of the Polish People's Republic and his wife". Onet.pl. 22 August 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
External links
- Media related to Piotr Jaroszewicz at Wikimedia Commons