MOSCOW, October 15 - RAPSI. The Grand Chamber will hear the application against the European Court of Human Rights' judgment in the case of the Polish POWs executed in Katyn in 1940 in February, Dr. Ireneusz Kaminski, the counsel for the POWs' relatives, told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) on Monday.

In April, the court found Russia in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on prohibiting torture, 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.

Another attorney of the applicants believes that the difficulties concerning Article 2 should be attributed to Russia's failure to produce all the required documents. In his view, the application is motivated by the significance of the case and the eventual division of the judges' opinions.

The decision to refer the case to the Grand Chamber was adopted on September 23.

The relatives of the POWs initially filed their complaint with the Strasbourg court, as they were unsatisfied with the investigation conducted by Russia. The investigation was completed in 2004.

The applicants claimed a violation of Article 3, 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 German troops of killing the POWs.

However, in 1990 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.