Thursday, November 03, 2005

Sebastian Kornhauser part II

Hey I am back. I have been suffering from the disease known as modemitis, but I think I have it all squared away.

And while I was gone I came upon a most interesting fellow, a Mr. Sebastian Kornhauser who has been a prisoner of Poland for roughly the last six months. This is the same fellow whose letter I printed in the last blog.

Mr. Kornhauser and I have been back and forthing for the last few days and so I have decided to write a few more words about him. In fact, I think that he might be the most interesting fellow this blog has run into since I have begun it and my thinking is that his story is worth following.

He sent me a couple of letters in fact that I want to publish here as they give a really interesting picture of dealing with the Polish judicial types.

On November 1st he sent me this:


Dear Mr. Adam Goodman,

Thank you for your email. I am very grateful to you for publishing details of this abuse on the site. Reading your email I was also very surprised at the extent you are able to understand me and how it feels to suffer torment in a foreign country and all the numerous problems one goes through under such unexplained circumstances. I do agree with you, the greatest loss for me is the intellectual data and the lap top which consists of over 100'000 documents and pieces of research. Such knowledge and video footage is irreplaceable. I don't think I will ever be able to compile such a comprehensive list again. Given he fact I have documentation from the police and the prosecutors office which states that the lap top is not to be used as evidence and returned back to me, I consider what has happened as state theft.

You are right when you said that everyone has access to their files. They are held in the court.

After they had released me from the second prison in Krakow I went to the courts two weeks later to read the files. All I read was lies and false police statements, then knew I was framed for something but didn't know what for. The court secretaries did not allow me to photocopy pages, but stated that I need to submit a written letter requesting permission to obtain copies. "A decision will be made within a month, maybe longer". The woman said. I did not have a month to wait around.

My contempt for Poland and for their vindictive 'justice system is such that I returned to the court building the following day and physically removed the papers from the file and walked out of the building unnoticed. Never again will there be a time when I will respect or be forced to respect Polish laws. At every opportunity I will conduct the same kind of extrajudiciality that I myself have been forced to be the victim of. I do not like to see myself as a victim but it is difficult to stand your ground on a 1 to a 1'000'000 basis. There is no way one can win.

The Polish clearly do not respect human rights, minority rights or any other rights, this is certain, so why should anyone respect them?

I realize how dehumanized I have become. When a state under he guise of justice treats you like an animal, and hunts you across the country with great determination, it is difficult to adjust back to civil society. Especially one that you are familiar with.

Interesting stuff. I wrote to him asking him to try and be calm and offering that he should realize that self control would win the day as well as trying to explain the nuts and bolts of the court’s secretary’s obnoxiousness (she is just following orders and protocols in a manner consistent with all Pollack bureaucrats). He wrote me back another two letters giving some rather colorful detail about the Krakow prosecutor and how they have been dealing with him:

Nov 2nd
Dear Adam,

Thank you for your email. First and foremost Adam it is important for me to say that I wholly agree with what you have written. Your advice is down to earth, real and more specifically, it makes sense.

Whilst I realize that operating on the same level as "they" may lead to more problems in the future, I also consider valuable lessons taken from my difficult experience in Poland. That is; impossible to be honest and transparent in a corrupt and dishonest society.

There is absolutely no way one can win. Anyone who tries to be honest will be taken out and shredded, alive either by the "law", his competitors or anyone else for that matter. Had I not done what I did; it is fair to say that I would have never known (in terms of tangible proof) the illicit and corruptible ways in which the prosecutor operates under the cover of justice in order to achieve his conviction. There are no rules, no coherent conventions, no procedures, and no regulations to govern the code of conduct of a prosecutor in the Polish Judicial system. They play by no rules and use any means necessary at their disposal to get what they want, i.e. a conviction. Such a conviction for the polish prosecutors is like scoring a point. It secures them with future career prospects, the possibility of a pay rise etc. etc. I for one will not allow myself to be anyone's point system.

Speaking on the subject of the prosecutor. I telephoned him directly at his office in Krakow this morning and demanded to know where my lap top and my mobile phones are. This is before I have accessed your email.

The telephone conversation was less than pleasant.
Once this prosecutor realized who he was talking to, he started shouting at me telling me that he has sent 2 summonses to my address in Krakow and that I must see him tomorrow or else. As a Polish citizen you are my subject and an aspect of my prosecutative possessions.

I told him this: Listen you sick fuck, for that is what you are; there will never be an opportunity for you to pursue your malicious prosecutions and self imposed extrajudiciality against me. Don't even know what it is who want to charge me for, but anyway I am outside of Poland and not obliged in any way to deal with you. Give back what belongs to me and fuck off.

He told me "I will find you where ever you are because
I am empowered to prosecute foreigners like you in other countries". I replied, "no one in their right mind will even grant you an extradition hearing.

Besides, you don't even know where I am.

He threw the phone down and the line went dead.

I can see that this "Andrzej Kwasniewski" delegated as district prosecutor in Krakow from the regional prosecution is a really nasty man. It seems as if he is pursing a personal vendetta against me as a person despite the fact I have never seen him nor met him before.

He is the same man who terrorized my friend on 14th October 2005 at his office. My friend went to deliver a “sick note” letter from the doctor to say that I was sick and could not see him due to an accident. This was whilst I was physically still in Poland in order to buy time, enough time to leave the country. My friend returned shocked. He only went there to hand in the sick note at reception and leave. When he arrived at the prosecutor's office he said that the prosecutor himself was waiting by the door together with 5 policemen. He said that they searched him 4 times at the entrance of the prosecutor’s office and took him upstairs to the 4th floor. The prosecutor was swearing and shouting at him demanding to know my whereabouts.

My friend didn't tell him. Stating he is probably with friends in Jaslo recovering from his accident, the town on the Polish / Slovakian border, but does know where.

"He was ready for you Sebastian. Had you done there yourself to see him, you would not have walked back out again." was the first sentence my friend said to me.

What a nasty and fucked up case. The man is one of the cruelest people whom I have ever met. He was just evil.

I know of this prosecutor only through what my friend has told me having gone to see him in person. He tells me this guy has the profile of a power hungry psycho.

He also sent me another letter on the 2nd of November specifically dealing with what happened when he friend went to deliver that “sick note”

Dear Adam,

In the early hours of 17th October 2005, three men approached my friend (Darek) in Katowice another town in Poland and demanded he goes with them to some undisclosed location. There he was tortured and interrogated by numerous people demanding to know what he knows about the contents of my lap top. I am aware that they released him but re arrested him again at 6.00am three days later where he was held for 48 hours.

What do you make out of this Adam? Perhaps you can give me some insight into what you think is going on. The problem with cases and extrajudicial actions conducted by the state where in this case, I myself don't know what I am supposed to have done or what it is they want to charge me for, carries numerous psychological dilemmas. Everything against me is conducted from the shadows. The only thing I can do is bring the matter before as many people as I can in order to bring clarity and transparency into an elusive affair where extrajudiciality is conducted in silence and by stealth. People who have invested a lot of time to help me in Poland have themselves been targeted, tortured, interrogated by unknown persons and entities.

Yours sincerely,

Sebastian Kornhauser

As well as this to him from another friend about that same incident:

Sebastian,

Darek has already called his lawyer, who said she doesn't know what to do, so I told him that she should call your lawyer in Krakow and talk to her. The problem though is that you are the only person who really knows what's on that lap top, therefore you and only you have knowledge of how serious it really is and whether Darek is in any danger. They threatened him and when I talked to Darek he was so terrified he almost cried.

We don't know whether it was the police. Darek said they showed him some ID but it was so quick he couldn't tell who they were. They forced him into the car and drove him to some place other than a police station where they questioned him. They must have followed him from home to the university. They didn't ask him where you are, but whether he knows what's on the lap top, assuming (openly) that he knows, and they told him that if he doesn't tell them they're going to put him in prison for 48 hours but under what accusations they didn't tell. They also asked him who's involved in this case. That's all I know.

I don't know what to do, but I know Darek needs to be protected

Ania

Dear Ania,

I went to my lawyer this afternoon. Mrs Wieslawa Chmielowska the military lawyer at Plac Dominikanski 5 in Krakow. She has informed me that this is the most severe case of abuse of law she has ever come across in all her years as a legal attorney in Poland. Nothing is clear or
transparent in this case. The prosecution refuses to say what the case is about. I went to the Prosecutors office in Krakow Srodmiescie earlier on. Apparently the Prokuratura Okregowa has taken up an undefined case and refuses to tell me what it is about. They are also
refusing to return all my phones, IT stuff and lap top. Mrs. Chmielowska is suggesting that I leave Poland as soon as the hearing is over on 5th October 2005 whilst in the meanwhile she will go to the Prosecutor either on Tuesday or Wednesday. What the fuck am I supposed
to do? What do they want to frame me for? I haven't got a clue what's going on and this is real weird.

Listen to this stuff! They are grabbing the guy’s friends off the street. They are using commando tactics. They are torturing innocent people for their information and this is six months after they pulled Kornhauser out of his house. SIX MONTHS!! Six months after rifling open his computer and going through all of his stuff. And they are still acting as if they have not a clue as to what is going on. Well, I will tell you, if the guy is a spy, he is being pretty damned public about it, isn’t he?

What is my take on this?

Well, ok, the guy was in armaments and this, aside from any moral reservations I may have about the profession (and that I mention it shows that I have them), what is very obvious is that this is a big, big, big money enterprise and one which is most probably filled with a lot of less than nice people. Having read all of Mr. Kornhauser’s material, what is mort clear to me is that someone, perhaps a competitor, someone who didn’t like him for some reason, or someone who simply wanted what was in Kornhauser’s laptop used his official position to break into the man’s life and throw him in prison for six months without a whole lot of proof justifying their actions.

There are several interesting things about this case and the first is how Poland acted against him. Specifically, how they used their ridiculously slow an inept system to punish someone before the man was ever even proved guilty. Every sentence the man says echo’s the same sorts of complaints that I had when Poland was holding me prisoner for 10 months back in 2002 and 2003. All of it is the same; the empty accusations, the bureaucratic abuse, the sadism of the prosecutors, the lack of interest amongst the lawyers.

But also, look at how obviously the prosecutor is attached to whoever was really behind this scandal. The man has no real evidence but yet he is standing their screaming at this human being, informing him with every gesture that he has no rights under Polish jurisdiction and that there need not be any sort of questioning to be done about this. This is exactly what was up with my prosecutor Stanislaw Wieniakowski. Was Kornhauser worth money to him? Wiesniakowski thought I was worth money to him. Or was he already paid off? And of course it is most important for him to throw in that he can do this is because Kornhauser is supposed to be a Polish national. This is the same crap they pulled with me as concerned whether or not I had a Polish address. But will you just look at how he abuses his position. And how he abuses the people with whom he comes in contact with.

Can you see this folks? These people have to be stopped. They are so abusive and so criminal and I guarantee you that Kornhauser and I are not the only people who have had this sort not torment thrown at them. In fact, I would be willing to guess that there have been thousands. Yes, that is right: Not hundreds, THOUSANDS!!!

So you know, I want to support this man in his actions against Poland. He went back to England and has started to do the process of building a grand lawsuit against Poland. Perhaps I would have been better off doing the same but instead chose to try and be a tough guy and follow through with my plans to be here in Belarus. Perhaps I was wrong but I did what I did. But in any case, let’s go and put some justice back in the word justice. Let’s bring these horrible criminals to justice for their crimes. I for one am with you all the way Sebastian. Fuck these people! I mean, I am sorry for those of my readers who have asked me to curb the language, but just FUCK THESE PEOPLE!!

I am going to keep after this story and I urge those of you out there who have such stories of your own to come forward and put them up for all to see. I have already got several hundred stories, let’s go and make the list really, really, really big. Or at least big enough that it begins to make the picture clear!!