Journalist Jarosław Ziętara disappeared on September 1, 1992, in Poznań, western Poland. After years of delay in investigating his disappearance and suspected death, and a pressure campaign by the journalist’s family and colleagues calling for action, prosecutors reopened the investigation in 2011 and determined that Ziętara had likely been killed in connection with his reporting on corruption.
In December 2025, an appeals court overturned the 2022 acquittal of two suspects who were charged with abduction and aiding in the murder of Ziętara. In January 2024, the court of appeals in Poznań issued a final judgment upholding the 2022 acquittal of Aleksander Gawronik, a former member of the Polish Senate and entrepreneur, on charges of incitement to murder, due to a lack of evidence.
The whereabouts of Ziętara’s body remain unknown in a long-standing case that highlights challenges in pursuing justice for journalists targeted for their work.
Ziętara, a 24-year-old investigative journalist for regional daily newspaper Gazeta Poznańska, disappeared in the morning of September 1, 1992, after he left his home to go to the editorial office in Poznań, according to a 2008 report by his employer, a 2012 report by public broadcaster TVP, and a timeline of the case published on a commemorative website, maintained by Ziętara’s family and friends, that collects and archives documents and articles. (Gazeta Poznańska merged with Głos Wielkopolski in 2006.)
On September 2, local police in Poznań were notified of Ziętara's disappearance, according to the commemorative website; however, the police did not investigate at that time, saying he had likely disappeared of his own accord or died by suicide, according to Głos Wielkopolski and the commemorative website.
Prior to his disappearance, Ziętara had published investigative articles about alleged irregularities and corruption connected to the privatization of state-owned companies, and the alleged involvement of the political elite and the secret services in these scandals; he also covered human trafficking and smuggling along the German-Polish and Belarusian-Polish borders, according to reports by Głos Wielkopolski and private news channel TVN24. Along with working for Gazeta Poznańska, he contributed to the local edition of Gazeta Wyborcza and to the Wprost weekly, according to those reports.
Following pressure from friends and family, the district prosecutor’s office in Poznań opened a criminal investigation into Ziętara’s disappearance on September 6, 1993; police had earlier suspected that Ziętara had gone abroad without notifying anyone, weekly newspaper Polytika reported in 2015 and Głos Wielkopolski reported in 2020. The investigation was discontinued in March 1995, as it found no crime; it resumed in November 1998 — this time into Ziętara’s potential kidnapping and killing — after new testimony emerged from witnesses, whose identities were not disclosed, saying that the journalist was a victim of a contract killing, according to the commemorative website and a 2011 report by Głos Wielkopolski. The investigation was dropped again in September 1999 because Ziętara's body had never been found, according to the same sources.
In September 2008, Głos Wielkopolski reporters analyzed documents provided by the prosecutor’s office and found that important information had been overlooked or even ignored by investigators. According to those documents, the prosecutor’s office possessed information which said that Ziętara got into a police car shortly after leaving his apartment on the day of his disappearance, and that Ziętara’s office had received an anonymous message stating that officers from the State Protection Office (UOP, the intelligence agency from 1990 to 2002) knew what happened to journalist. Głos Wielkopolski also reported that the journalist’s family informed investigators that six months before his disappearance, Ziętara was summoned to the UOP in Bydgoszcz and was offered a job or some kind of cooperation deal.
On April 29, 2011, the editors-in-chief of the largest newspapers in Poland sent an open letter to the Polish government requesting that the investigation into Ziętara’s disappearance resume and be handed over to a prosecutor’s office outside Poznań to guarantee the impartiality of the proceedings, and that the intelligence services disclose any information they might possess about the journalist and hand them over to prosecutors, Gazeta Wyborcza reported.
The investigation resumed on June 14, 2011, and was transferred from Poznań to Kraków, in southern Poland; the Kraków prosecutor changed the legal classification of the investigation from kidnapping to murder, according to a report by TVP, which CPJ reviewed. According to that report, the Kraków prosecutor also found — following an analysis of evidence — that a potential motive for the crime was Ziętara’s journalism about economic scandals.
On November 4, 2014, the Kraków prosecutor’s office ordered the pre-trial detention of a former member of the Polish Senate and entrepreneur identified as Alexander G. and charged him with inciting murder, Głos Wielkopolski reported. The outlet later identified him as Aleksander Gawronik, who served as a member of Poland’s Senate, the upper house of Parliament, between 1993 and 1997, according to the Senate’s website.
On November 25, 2014, the prosecutor’s office ordered the pre-trial detention of two former security guards working for Elektromis, a holding wholesale trade company: 56-year-old Mirosław R., known in the 1990s in Poznań by the pseudonym “Ryba” (“Fish"); and 46-year-old Dariusz L., pseudonym “Lala,” on charges of aiding in the kidnapping of Ziętara, Głos Wielkopolski reported. Their full names were not disclosed under Polish privacy laws, and both denied the charges, according to those reports. According to daily newspaper Fakt, the two men also worked for Gawronik.
On January 2, 2015, the appellate prosecutor’s office in Krakow ordered the two former security guards released, according to the commemorative website and news website Dziennik Polski.