MOSCOW, October 10 - RAPSI. The European Court of Human Rights has accepted a request on behalf of the relatives of the Polish POWs executed in Katyn in 1940 for referral of the Katyn case to the Grand Chamber, counsel Ireneusz Kaminski told RAPSI on Tuesday.
In April, the court found Russia in breach of Article 3 on prohibiting torture of the European Convention on Human Rights, arguing that the Russian authorities failed to provide sufficient information to some of the POWs' relatives. However, the court did not produce a judgment on Article 2 on the right to life. "The European Court of Human Rights (five judges' panel) accepted on 23 September my request for referral of the Katyn case to the Grand Chamber," Kaminski said.
He added that the hearing date has yet to be set, but he expects it to be held in January or February, taking into account the court's practice.
The relatives of the POWs initially filed their complaint with the Strasbourg court, as they were unsatisfied with an investigation conducted by Russia. The investigation was completed in 2004.
The applicants claimed a violation of Article 3 on the prohibition of torture and inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, alleging that Russia failed to provide them with information about the fate of the victims and declined to make any requests for such information.
For several decades, the Soviet authorities denied their involvement in the mass execution of Polish POWs and officials in the Smolensk and Kaliningrad regions, Ukraine and Belarus.
In 1944, a Soviet commission headed by a renowned academic accused the German troops of killing the POWs. However, the TASS information agency issued a statement admitting that the Katyn massacre was one of the gravest crimes committed by Stalinism.
According to the declassified memorandum prepared by the KGB chief at the time, about 22,000 military officers and civil servants deported from Poland were executed in a special operation on March 5, 1940 upon the order of the Soviet Communist Party's leaders.
