Key suspect in top Polish cop's killing held in U.S.

A Chicago court will decide on Wednesday whether to arrest or free on bail Edward Mazur suspected by Polish public prosecutors of instigating to murder Polish former national police chief Marek Papala back in 1998, the PAP news agency reported on Sunday.

Mazur was detained by FBI on Friday in Chicago where he lives. Polish authorities believe that this offers "a serious opportunity " of bringing him to Poland to stand trial.

Mazur, a businessman who was born in Poland and holds Polish and U.S. citizenship, reportedly admitted he knew the top Polish cop well and he was also one of the last persons to have met Papala shortly before his death.

Poland issued an international warrant of arrest on Mazur in February, 2005 on charges he solicited the murder of Papala, according to an extradition complaint unsealed after his arrest.

According to the complaint, Mazur was accused of offering Artur Zirajewski 40,000 dollars in April 1998 to kill Papala and had also solicited Andrzej Zielinski to commit the murder. Both men were arrested before Papala's murder.

Zirajewski, in a summary of a statement contained in the complaint, said he had met with organized crime and narcotics trafficking figures at a hotel in Gdansk of Poland and later with a man named Mazur, who called Papala an obstacle to business.

Source: Xinhua