Krakow Institute Maintains Conclusions on Wałęsa Documents — Interia
In Poland, the Professor Jan Sehn Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow stated that it fully supports the conclusions of the handwriting examination concerning documents attributed to former president Lech Wałęsa. The prosecutor’s office previously discontinued proceedings in which Wałęsa was charged with giving false testimony, questioning the suitability of the materials for handwriting comparison.
As Interia reports, after issuing its written opinion, the institute’s experts also provided an oral opinion and confirmed their initial assessments. No authority conducting the proceedings subsequently requested an additional examination from the institution.
Proceedings over testimony
The charge concerned Wałęsa’s questioning as a witness on April 13, 2016. He was questioned as part of an investigation by the branch of the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Białystok into the authenticity of the so-called Czesław Kiszczak files.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Wałęsa was shown handwritten documents found at the home of General Kiszczak’s widow. They came from the personal and work files of a Security Service secret collaborator using the pseudonym “Bolek” and contained signatures reading “Bolek” or “Lech Wałęsa.” With the exception of one document, Wałęsa denied writing or signing the materials shown to him.
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In justifying the discontinuation of the proceedings, the prosecutor’s office stated that the experts’ opinion was not categorical regarding the authorship of the examined entries and signatures. It also noted that the experts could not be certain whether the samples submitted to them for comparison had in fact been written by Wałęsa.
Dispute over handwriting samples
The prosecutor’s office considered the comparative material inadequate, in particular because the samples came from different periods of the former president’s life. It pointed to a significant difference between the handwriting in documents from 1976 and 1996 and stated that comparing long texts with short entries or signatures does not meet the standards of handwriting examinations.
The institute disagreed. According to it, the comparative materials covered the period from 1963 to 2016, including more than 30 signatures from the 1970s, as well as more than 50 signatures and entries on around 20 documents from the 1980s. The institution stated that it checked the consistency of the materials before the examination and excluded some signatures. The experts also reported finding entries made by Security Service employees, including six “Bolek” signatures and one report written and signed by an employee of that service.
