Strasbourg Katyn ruling 'only first step' says attorney general

photo - PAP/Grzegorz Jakubowski

“I think that this is the first step in a process, and it will not stop,” Seremet told Polish Radio, adding that the ruling was not an example however of “winners or losers”.

Although the European rights court in Strasbourg said it could not rule on the effectiveness of Russia's investigation into the Katyn massacre of over 22,000 Polish officers on Stalin's orders - as Russia signed the European Convention on Human Rights eight years after it began its investigation into the massacre – the failure to explain why Moscow had broken off the investigation in 2004 was in breach of treating family members in “a humane and compassionate way,” Attorney General Seremet said.

The massacre of thousands of Polish POWS in 1940 has long been a thorn in Polish-Russian relations, with Polish lawyers and historians saying that Moscow must take greater responsibility in investigating the deaths.

The Court also ruled Monday that the Katyn massacre could be refereed to as a “war crime”, which would enable prosecutions against individuals thought responsible to take place in international courts.

Polish lawyers at Poland's state-backed Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) want the events that occurred in the forests of Katyn in 1940 be ruled “genocide”.

Russia has been ordered to pay a lump sum of 5000 euro to cover the legal costs and expenses of the plaintiffs, as well as a further 1500 euro to cover the expenses of individual complainant Jerzy Karol Malewicz. (pg/nh)