The Warsaw Military Regional Court has accepted the motion of the prosecutor of the Commission Investigating Crimes Against the Polish Nation of the Institute of National Remembrance to issue a European Arrest Warrant for the former judge, Stefan Michnik. Michnik, who was a judge in the Military Court during the Communist era in Poland, is suspected of committing 93 crimes, falling under the category of crimes against humanity. In 1952 and 1953 he, among other things, handed out death sentences and long prison sentences for the anti-Communist activists.
Stefan Michnik born 28 September 1929, in Drohobycz (at the time, part of the Second Polish Republic; now Drohobych, Ukraine), is a former Stalinist military judge of the Soviet-dominated regime in post-World War II Poland, and a former captain in the communist Polish People’s Army. He was involved in the politically-motivated arrest, trial, imprisonment and/or execution of a number Polish anti-communist fighters and activists. Many of those persecuted by Michnik also fought against Nazi Germany during World War II, as members of the Polish resistance.
After de-stalinization, Michnik went into exile in 1968, and has lived in Storvreta, Sweden.[4]
After the collapse of communism in Poland (1989), Michnik was formally implicated by the Polish justice system in zbrodnie komunistyczne (“communist crimes”) relating to his tenure as a military judge.