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Summary: The article presents six soldiers from the 15th Brigade of Border Protection Troops (15 BWOP) who served in Border Control Department in Darłowo and Irena Rabczenko, a wife of one of them. It also describes the actions by officers of Military Information (especially Lieutenant colonel Józef Waluk, Major Józef Szlegier and Captain Tadeusz Gąska) who broke the law building up and fabricating "facts" in order to charge the victims with treason they had never committed.
On the basis of false denunciations from secret informers, the subordinates of Major Szlegier, the head of Intelligence Department of 15 BWOP undertook proceedings under his supervision and encouraged by the Main Directorate of Information of the Internal Security Corps (KBW) and Border Protection Troops (WOP) which were to "reveal" all the essential developments in the "case". They were conducted in the WOP Unit but also outside it in the places where the accused lived and contacted other people. Arrests and a "thorough investigation" resulted in formal charges against all the seven people in February 1953. The Regional Military Court (WSR) in Koszalin announced the verdict on 30 June 1953. The sentences were very harsh not to say extremely severe. Three of them were sentenced to death, two were sentenced to 10 years in prison and one of them was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Irena Rabczenko was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The soldiers were charged with the most severe crimes namely, treason and espionage. They were convicted on the basis of dubious and fabricated evidence. On 21 April 1955, the Highest Military Court (NSW) examined the case of Mieczysław Rabczenko and the others again. They decided to assess the petition for revision of the Supreme Military Prosecutor's Office and overrule the WSR verdict as well as the NSW provisions of 10 September 1953. They ordered to refer the case to WSR in Gdańsk for re-examination of conducting "hostile propaganda" after completing the documentation. The Pomeranian Military District (POW) Court announced the verdict in this appalling case. They recommended a sentence of time served and released the prisoners.
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Language note
Streszczenie w języku angielskim.
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