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Intervention from Prime Minister Helen Clark is the only hope a New Zealand man being held in a Polish jail has of getting bail, his lawyer says.
Bruce Robinson was charged with endangering the life and health of people following the collapse of a snow-covered roof of a hall in the southern city of Katowice last January, killing 65 people. A further 140 were injured.
Robinson was managing director of Expomedia, a London-based parent company of International Katowice Fairs, which owned the building.
Robinson's lawyer, Greg Slyszyk, told the Sunday Star-Times from Poland that appeals against his detention had failed and Miss Clark's intervention was needed.
"Any possibility to help Bruce lies in her hands. They (the New Zealand Government) should start being interested, and show how a democratic country fights for an individual citizen," Mr Slyszyk said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has previously said he can not interfere in the Polish judicial process.
Robinson's family told the newspaper he was not trying to escape trial; he just wanted bail until his trial rather than being locked up for 22 hours a day with seven other inmates in a 15 sq m cell.
The trail was expected to be later this year, at the earliest, Slyszyk said.
- NZPA
