Poland to pardon killer of two gangsters

WARSAW - A Polish businessman jailed for the beheading of two gangsters who were blackmailing him is to receive a pardon after serving 10 years in prison, an aide to President Aleksander Kwasniewski has said.

Slawomir Sikora's story was the inspiration of the 1999 Polish film "The Debt" (Dlug), which aroused considerable public sympathy for him.

Sikora was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1997 as an accessory to the murders of two gangsters who had been blackmailing him and his business partner to commit crimes, claiming the pair owed them money.

His business partner decapitated the gangster and his bodyguard with a meat cleaver while Sikora restrained them.

"After acquainting himself with the case, Kwasniewski has decided to pardon Mr Sikora, who has already spent 10 years behind bars," Dariusz Szymczycha told private Radio Zet, referring to Sikora's sentence and pre-trial detention.

President-elect Lech Kaczynski, due to be sworn in later this month, has vowed to pardon Sikora if Kwasniewski fails to, PAP news agency reported, citing Kaczynski's Law and Justice party spokesman Adam Bielan.

An opposition leader dismissed Kwasniewski's plan to pardon Sikora as an attempt to make his planned pardon of a fellow ex-communist, former Deputy Interior Minister Zbigniew Sobotka, more palatable.

Sobotka is serving a 3-1/2-year sentence for helping tip off gangsters about a planned police raid. Kwasniewski's intention to pardon him has been widely criticised in the media.

"The pardon for Sikora is simply a smokescreen behind which President Kwasniewski hopes to pardon his friend Sobotka," Jan Rokita, a leader of the centrist Civic Platform party, told news channel TVN24.

- REUTERS