Solidarity priest reported kidnapped

Press, 22 October 1984, Page 6

Solidarity priest reported kidnapped

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw An outspokenly anti-Com-munist Warsaw priest who has been reported kidnapped is probably being held by the authorities as an act of intimidation, Solidarity sources say. They hoped that Father Jerzy Popieluszko would quickly be released without being harmed. State television news said that Father Popieluszko had been abducted on Saturday as he drove home from Bydgoszcz, north-east of Warsaw, where he had celebrated Mass. His car had been flagged down after dark in, the countryside 225 km from the capital by kidnappers who included a man dressed in a police uniform. He was stopped on the pretext of an alcohol test. The driver, who escaped and raised the alarm, said that Father Popieluszko was driven off at high speed. Father Popieluszko, aged 37, is a vocal supporter of the banned Solidarity free trade union. He was among several hundred opponents of the Government who recently benefited from a political amnesty. Patriotic Masses, which he celebrates each month at St Stanislaw’s Church, in a Warsaw suburb, are regularly attended by thousands of opposition supporters

who applaud his denunciations of the Communist authorities. Before the amnesty in July Father Popieluszko faced charges of abusing religious freedom because of the political content of his sermons. He was also accused of harbouring explosives at his home in Warsaw, but he said that the charge had been rigged by the police. A priest at the headquarters of the Polish Episcopate in Warsaw said the Church had no immediate comment to make on Father Popieluszko’s disappearance. The extensive television report gave telephone numbers where possible witnesses could give information to the police trying to find him. The television report said that Father Popieluszko had been staying at a parish house in the town of Bydgoszcz, which was a Solidarity stronghold before the union was banned under martial law in 1981. A nun at St Stanislaw’s said that the parish had no information about the incident. “Father Popieluszko does not tell us about his plans when he travels in Poland and we do not ask him. We learned of his disappearance from television,” she said.