About 70 descendants of Katyń crime victims filed a suit against Russia to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

On the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party signed by Stalin, Molotov, Mikoyan and Voroshilov 14700 prisoners of war and 11000 prisoners of jails in Western Belarus and Ukraine were destined to be fired “without trial or investigation”. Thus, about 22 thousand Polish officers, priests, doctors, policemen and professors were slaughtered in the spring of 1940.

In May 2005 the judge advocate general of the Russian Federation Savenkov stated that the investigation of Katyń crime, dragging for as long as 14 years, was over. However, not a single person was arraigned. Moreover, Russians regard Katyń as war crime with an expired period of limitation. Thus, Moscow refused to avow the Katyń crime genocide.

Polish investigation involving 16 prosecutors, funded by the relations of the massacred, was originated by the Institute of National Memory in December 2004. Despite the fact the Russian side promised to hand all the documents regarding Katyń case to the polish side, Moscow failed to do so.

Besides, in March 2005 Polish Sejm directed to the Russian authorities a special resolution, requesting to acknowledge the massacre of Polish prisoners of war genocide.

The first suit to Strasbourg was filed by Witomiła Wołk-Jezierska, whose father was one of the 22 thousand of victims. 70 more Poles are intending to take legal action against Russia on Katyń case, among them current citizens of the USA, France and Israel.

According to the Polish side, the Russian investigation proved inefficient. Thus, article 13 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was violated, which states that “Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity”. That, according to the plaintiff, means that by terminating the investigation and not bringing the matter to court the Russian side stripped the descendants of Katyń victims of “effective remedy”.

The court in Strasbourg will impartially manage the case and state whether the Katyń crime was or was not genocide. One has to hope that it receives due assessment and the suit to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg provides a fine precedent for the outrages of communist terror to be called by their proper names.