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Legal Action
February 6
Jerzy Urban, NIE, LEGAL ACTION
Urban, editor in chief of the satirical weekly NIE, was convicted of publishing secret documents and given a one-year suspended prison sentence, fined US$4,000, and banned from managing a publication and acting as a journalist for one year. Urban's conviction stems from a 1992 article in NIE that included secret documents of the Communist political police. CPJ protested the conviction and sentencing of Urban in a letter to President Aleksander Kwasniewski. On Sept. 26, the Appeals Court in Warsaw annulled the February verdict of the Warsaw District Court. The presiding judge for the appeal said that the District Court 'had no grounds' for handing down its sentence, as 'the prosecution's case had not been proven.' The Appeals Court returned the case to the office of the Warsaw district prosecutor, who now has the option of either preparing new legal proceedings or discontinuing the case.
For more information contact europeweb@cpj.org