Period Timeline: 1990-2005
13 April 1990
USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev hands over the documents evidencing the NKVD responsibility for the Katyń crime to Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski. The TASS news agency points to the guilt of Lavrenty Beria and Vsevolod Merkulov.
25 July 1991 - 9 August 1991
Kharkov. Exhumation works confirm the date and place of torture of the prisoners of war and reveal the number of those killed. 15–29 August – Similar examinations are conducted at Mednoye.
14 October 1992
President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin hands over to Polish President Lech Wałęsa a photocopy of “Package No. 1” containing documents confirming the responsibility of the CPCU Political Bureau for the Katyń crime and its being covered up during the existence of the USSR.
21 September 2004
The inquiry into the Katyń crime conducted by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation is discontinued.
References
- From the Katyn Committee’s appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev
- From the conclusions of the Statement by the Expert Committee (a body of Russian specialists in law, history, medicine and the military investigating the materials of criminal case No. 159 concerning the execution of Polish prisoners of war)
- Ewa Gruner-Żarnoch, daughter of Julian Gruner murdered in Kharkov
- From the Resolution of the Sejm (Lower House) of the Republic of Poland commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Katyń crime
- From International Memorial Society’s Statement on investigation of the “Katyn crime” in Russia
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