Supreme Court rejects appeal of mother who killed baby
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
22.07.2015 15:07
Poland's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a mother who was given a 25-year sentence for murdering her baby daughter in a case that drew extensive media coverage in 2012.
Judges Józef Dołhy, Dorota Rysińska i Roman Sądej at the Supreme Court in Warsaw, 22 July. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Katarzyna Waśniewska, who is currently 25, caught the sympathy of the nation when she announced on 24 January 2012 that her six-month old daughter Magda had been abducted from her pram by a hooded assailant in Sosnowiec, Silesia.
However, the mother later confessed that the baby had died during an accident in her apartment.
Waśniewska revealed that she had hidden the baby's body in a ruined railway building in Sosnowiec. The child was duly discovered at the site by police.
The mother was initially charged with involuntary manslaughter, after claiming that the child had accidentally fallen onto the floor.
However, the charge was later changed to murder.
Doctors claimed that the baby had been suffocated in a rapid action, and the prosecution made a convincing case that the defendant had not wanted a child.
Waśniewska was initially sentenced at the Regional Court in Katowice in September 2013. The Appeal Court in Katowice upheld the verdict in September 2015.
She cannot apply for parole for twenty years, five more than in the original verdict. (nh)
Source: PAP