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On April 18, 1961, the case of Polish People’s Republic v. Michał Goleniewski opened in the Warsaw District Military Court.
The defendant was accused of two offenses: stealing substantial quantities of state funds, most of it in hard foreign currency, and the more serious charge of “betrayal of the Homeland” — treason — under Article 83 of the Army’s penal code. If convicted, the latter carried an inexorable sentence: death.
Despite the gravity of the indictments, the trial was scheduled to last just one day. Only two witnesses were summoned to give evidence; they, like the prosecutor and the three judges, were both senior officers in
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