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The Katyń Crime before the European Court of Human Rights each of their relatives held in the NKVD camps ceased in late April or early May 1940. From that moment on the families lost all contact with their imprisoned relatives, even though in their previous correspondence those imprisoned had indicated their intention to continue corresponding with their families in occupied Poland.
90. For these reasons, taking into account the cited case law of the Court, the specified source
materials, the indicated facts concerning the whereabouts of the applicants’ relatives and the personal effects found during the excavation works, the Government submit that it should be assumed that the death of at least four Polish citizens: Wincenty Wołk, Stanisław Rodowicz, Stanisław Mielecki and Ryszard Żołędziowski – as a result of their execution by the NKVD in 1940 – is completely doubtless and as such should not be challenged in any way. Similarly in the case of the other Polish citizens: Stanisław Uziembło, Szymon Tomaszewski, Aleksander Wielebnowski, Stefan Erchard, Stanisław August Malewicz and Michał Adamczyk, whose relatives are also applicants in the instant case, the evidence collected in the course of the Russian investigation by Russian authorities has established a sufficient probability of their death.
91. Moreover, the position adopted by the Russian prosecution to the effect that all documents
pertaining to penal cases against the relatives of the applicants have been destroyed so it is impossible to determine the legal basis of the repressions against them is also doubtful. That assertion has led to the conclusion that without determining the legal basis for the repressions there is no legal possibility of rehabilitating the applicants’ relatives. At the same time, in the course of the judicial supervision of the Russian Katyń investigation, the military prosecution and courts made use of lists of prisoners of the Kozelsk and Ostashkov camps, wherein individual “case” (дело) numbers where placed beside the names of the applicants’ relatives held in those camps. The materials conveyed by the European Court do not elucidate the content of the materials described as “cases”, whether they were transmitted in 1940 to the “troika”, and whether they constituted the basis of the punishment meted out to the prisoners, i.e. the basis of individual decisions by the “troika” concerning the fate of the victims. Furthermore, it has not been revealed whether any of the documents designated as “cases” were destroyed, whether any of them have been preserved and if so – if they were incorporated in the materials of investigation No. 159. The absence of the relevant information by the Russian side casts doubt on the efficiency of the Russian investigation and of its judicial supervision.
92. Furthermore, it should be underscored that the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office and
Russian courts made the legal rehabilitation of the applicants’ relatives dependent on the determination of the legal basis for imposing the penalties against them. However, the Russian authorities neither determined the content of the “cases” identified next to the names of the applicants’ murdered relatives, nor took a position regarding the crucial decision of the Soviet Politburo of 5 March 1940. The decision clearly refers to the application of “special procedures” and not to judicial penal proceedings. In this regard, too, the Russian authorities, prominently including the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office, are guilty of omission and, in consequence, of inefficiency.
93. Thirdly, shortcomings in the work of the Russian prosecution are also indicated by the fact that after 1995 it stopped collecting evidence pertaining to the applicants’ relatives.