Trial
The case the press called the largest trafficking affair in post-war Europe ended in suspended sentences for currency dealing. It is worth understanding how, because it was not an accident.
The charges
The 1984 indictment covered three groups of offences: trafficking in human beings ("trade in live goods" in the language of the day), profiting from the prostitution of others, and currency offences.[1] The defendants were ZPR employees and, in absentia, the Italians. The trial was closed to the public.[2]
The dusted-off paragraph
"In 1981 the prosecutor dusted off an unused paragraph on trade in live goods," writes Helena Kowalik.[2] It was Article IX of the provisions introducing the 1969 Penal Code. The code itself had no trafficking offence, because it was held to be a crime "no longer current in Poland"; the offence was parked in the introductory act. Article IX §1 punished supplying, luring or abducting a person for prostitution, even with her consent; §2 punished trafficking in women, even with their consent, or in children. The minimum sentence was three years.[16] At the July 1981 press conference the militia spokesman admitted that "the crime of trade in live goods is not easy to prove".[2]
Who was missing
Camillo Cassaglia died of lung cancer months before the hearing. Claudio Massieri ignored the Polish courts: the People's Republic and Italy had no extradition treaty, and his address was unknown. Both forfeited bail of 100,000 dollars, and that was the extent of their accountability.[2][4] Mario Gaviraghi of Thea Maggioli was arrested in Italy, but not tried in Poland.[2]
What fell apart
The court found the first two charges unproven. In its reasoning it pointed to investigative errors: interrogators had equated "consumption" with prostitution, which, the court said, contaminated the witnesses' testimony.[2] Witnesses said the propositions in the clubs were "unambiguous", but that they received the same ones in Poland.[3] The judge noted that the booths were separated by "low partitions".[3] Defence counsel Stanisław Zabłocki said "the investigation quickly dispelled the myths around the case". The court wrote that "nobody forced anybody to do anything".[3]
The sentences
Verdict, 1984
| Trafficking in human beings | charge dropped |
| Profiting from prostitution | charge dropped |
| Currency offences | 2 years suspended, fine |
| People who went to prison | 0 |
| Who | For what | Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Head of ZPR's import and export department | currency offences | 2 years suspended, fine |
| Rank-and-file ZPR staff | currency offences | 1 year suspended, fines |
| Cassaglia, Massieri | absent | bail forfeited, $100,000 each |
Sources: Wikipedia, Kowalik, Styl.interia.[1][2][4]
A reasoning worth reading twice
"The publicity given to the affair hindered reaching the material truth at trial."From the court's reasoning, as quoted by Helena Kowalik.[2]
The court added that the televised arrests had been a harsher punishment for the accused than the formal sentence.[2] In other words: the public and the journalists were at fault, not the people who organised the trips.
Why it happened
- The law. The provision existed and said outright that the woman's consent was irrelevant.[16] The court nevertheless reasoned that "nobody forced anybody to do anything".[3] The problem was not a missing paragraph but proof of purpose: "consumption" at a table was not prostitution in the court's reading, and what happened in the booths was beyond the reach of a Polish investigation.
- No cooperation. No Polish investigator ever went to Italy: "in the difficult year 1981 there is no hard currency for such an undertaking". The Italian police never asked Poland for the files, and Poland was not then a member of Interpol. "The criminals profited from this," Lewandowski wrote; Gaviraghi was released on bail in Italy.[2][8]
- Fear. The prosecution admitted from the start that "the girls are afraid of the mafia".[2][3] Witnesses who had returned had reasons to testify carefully. Those who had not returned did not testify at all.
- The state. The defendant was a state firm. To find that ZPR had trafficked people would have been to find that the state had. A currency verdict allowed someone to be punished without the system being punished.
- Shame. Dobrowolska shows that the debate was framed from the beginning around the morality of the women, not the responsibility of institutions. In that frame the question "did they consent" replaced the question "who deceived them".[5][6]
The modern definition of trafficking, in force in Poland since 2010 as article 189a of the Penal Code, covers recruiting and transferring a person by deceit or by exploiting their vulnerable position, regardless of any formal "consent".[12] Under today's law the mechanism described here would have every element of the crime.