Institute of National Remembrance - text version
Information on the Investigation Conducted by the Institute of National Remembrance Branch Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Katowice in Case S. 45/02/Zn - wersja graficzna tekstu
On September 23rd, 2002, Branch
Commission for Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Katowice
initiated an investigation in the case of a Nazi crime committed in Łysiec in
the Stanisławowskie voivodship in the territory occupied then by Germans (Act S
45/02/Zn) consisting in committing by Bohdan Koziy of murder of three people of
Jewish nationality: Bernard Kandler, Lusi Rosiner and a girl named Singer.
It was stated in the
justification of a resolution to initiate the investigation that Bohdan Koziy,
as an official of the Ukrainian police which co-operated with Germans, while
participating in 1943 in the displacing of Jewish inhabitants to ghetto,
committed murders. With a double shoot from a pistol he killed a four-year old
daughter of a doctor Oskar Singer whom he had first taken away from a Pole
Jadwiga Spilarewicz who had been hiding the girl. He also shot to death Bernard
Kandler who made an attempt to run away from a truck full of displaced people
who were destined for the ghetto. He also murdered using a gun a fourteen-year
old Lusi Rosiner who hid in a barn.
Poland is eligible to prosecute
deeds committed by Bohdan Koziy because they were committed in the Polish state
occupied territory and they were directed against the victims of Polish
nationality.
Bohdan Koziy would be
responsible before the Polish court for committing a crime as described in
article 1 point 1 of a decree of August 31st 1944 concerning the punishment for
Fascist-Hitler perpetrators guilty of murders and tortures against civilians and
hostages, which decree states that everyone who co-operated or was associated
with the German state and took part in committing crimes (
) should be punished.
This crime, according to the
Polish law, constitutes a crime against humanity and its prosecution has no
statute of limitation. Polish criminal code envisions for this crime the
punishment of life imprisonment that however can be diminished by the judging
court.
A request of Efraim Zuroff, Head
of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, together with enclosed copies of
documentation from the proceedings by the United States to revoke Bohdan Koziys
US citizenship conducted by the US Federal Court Southern District of Florida,
was the basis to initiate the investigation in this case.
Bohdanus Koziy vel Bohdan Koziy,
born on February 23, 1923 in Pusakowce, Stanisławowskie voivodship, was an
official of the Ukrainian police co-operating with Germans in the period from
April 1st, 1942 to January 31st, 1944. In 1944 he fled, together with the
withdrawing German soldiers, to Germany where he gained a refugee status via the
International Organization for Refugees. In November 1949 he received an entry
visa to the United States and he left for there in December 1949. On February
9th, 1956 he received an American citizenship, of which he was then revoked,
also on the basis of testimonies of Polish witnesses, in a sentence of March
29th, 1982. Currently, since 1985 Bohdan Koziy has been residing in Costa Rica.
In the course of investigation
run by the Branch Commission in Katowice, activities aiming at the accumulation
of evidence are now undertaken that will allow to issue a decision to present
charges against Bogdan Koziy, to request the court to issue a temporary arrest
warrant of the suspect and to file an extradition request to the authorities of
Costa Rica.
On the basis of the evidence
that has been collected so far it has been established that in autumn 1943, in
Łysiec, Bogdan Koziy committed the crime of genocide against eight people.
March 18th, 2003
18 November 2003
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