U.S. Judge Frees Polish Murder Suspect

A U.S. judge denied on Friday a request from the Polish government for the extradition of a Chicago businessman accused of soliciting the 1998 murder of a former Warsaw police chief, and ordered the man set free.

Polish authorities had failed to produce proof required under treaties to justify the extradition of Edward Mazur, U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys ruled.

Mazur was arrested in October 2006 and has been held without bail since on charges brought more than a year before in Poland that he offered $40,000 for the murder of Marek Papala, a former commander general of the Warsaw Police Department.

Papala was shot once in the head and killed as he was getting out of a car in front of his home in Warsaw the night of June 25, 1998, six months after he had quit the police post.

Mazur's lawyer said the wealthy Polish-born investor was wrongly implicated in the affair.

In an earlier complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago, which represented the Polish government in the case, Mazur was accused of offering Artur Zirajewski $40,000 in April 1998 to kill Papala.

Mazur also solicited Andrzej Zielinski to commit the murder, but both Zielinski and Zirajewski were arrested before Papala's murder, the complaint said.

Mazur, who was born in Lubzin and has lived in the United States for the past 44 years, holds U.S. and Polish citizenship.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, said: "while we respect the Magistrate Judge's thoughtful opinion, we respectfully disagree with the result."

He added Justice Department lawyers will evaluate the court's 69-page opinion in considering possible options.