It means that no one will be held responsible for the fact that an innocent person spent 18 years in prison – neither the police, nor prosecutors, nor experts, nor judges, wrote Onet.pl.
Komenda was arrested in the spring of 2000 as a suspect in the brutal rape and murder of a fifteen-year-old girl. This happened after the report of a neighbor who – as it turned out years later – had an argument with Komenda’s mother.
Photo: Profimedia.cz
Pope Francis also met Komenda after his release in 2018
A DNA test was enough to make the arrest, even though experts pointed out that every 71st person showed the same match. The suspect was forced to confess, Gazeta Wyborcza wrote now. No one thought twice about the fact that a dozen people testified that Komenda was in the center of Wrocław on the incriminated New Year’s Eve night, and thus had a clear alibi.
The Pole unjustly spent 18 years in prison. The court awarded him a record compensation
In November 2003, he was sentenced to 15 years, half a year later the appeals court increased the sentence to 25 years. Komenda has always maintained that he is innocent. Because he did not confess, he could not count on being released before serving his entire sentence.
Photo: Profimedia.cz
The renewed process with the Command was accompanied by extraordinary media interest in Poland
Only a new examination of the biological material allowed him to be unequivocally excluded from the case. Investigators reopened the investigation due to a new suspect, and on that occasion, he was found to be innocent of the crime. Komenda was released from prison in March 2018 and two months later the Supreme Court finally cleared him. In February 2021, the court awarded him a record compensation of 13 million zlotys (about 73.5 million crowns).
At the end of the same year, another man, reported in the media as Ireneusz M., was sentenced to 25 years for the rape and murder of the girl; another convict, Norbert Basiura, who agreed to have his name published and who has maintained his innocence in interviews with journalists, was given 15 years. According to investigators, three people were involved in the crime, but the third perpetrator could not be located.
Calm and friendly, recalls the lawyer
After his release, Komenda himself named six people who, in his opinion, contributed to the fact that he spent almost two decades behind bars. They were two former police officers, one of whom has since been convicted of bribery, and two prosecutors, one of whom has since been fired for drunken driving. Komenda also pointed to his defense attorney and the mentioned neighbor.
Komenda’s lawyer appealed against the prosecutor’s office’s decision to end the investigation into who is responsible for imprisoning an innocent person. Komenda’s brother gave him full power to do so, saying that Tomasz would like it that way, the newspaper added.
“It looked like after 18 years, he finally got his life in order. (…) But in reality, fate prepared a continuation of the tragedy for him,” Komenda’s lawyer Zbigniew Cwiakalski told PAP. According to him, Komenda was a very calm and friendly person, although he was marked by 18 years behind bars and found it difficult to adjust to life outside prison. “I never heard him raise his voice,” Professor Cwiakalski said.
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