Page 1, 2nd November 1962

2nd November 1962

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Page 1, 2nd November 1962 — `I MURDERED PRIEST' STORY IS DENIED
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`I MURDERED PRIEST' STORY IS DENIED

Keywords: Bradford, Ilkley

Catholic Herald Reporters WIDESPREAD speculation has arisen this week over reports that a former Soviet agent had confessed to murdering Fr. Henry Borynski. a Polish priest who disappeared from Bradford in 1953. Official denials seem only to have added to the speculation.
The first reports published this week claimed that the confession had been made in (jet-many by Bogdan Staschynski, a professional killer who has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by a German Court for murdering two Ukrainian exiles. It was claimed that during his trial for these murders, Staschynski said he had also killed Fr. Borynski—using cyanide spray and burying the body on Ilkley Moor.
Later however, the West German Federal Investigation Department said : "Staschynski has not confessed to the priest's murder and has not mentioned it in any of his extensive confessions and descriptions of his activities".
SIMILAR
The judge who tried the case has said that Fr. Borynsky was never even mentioned during the hearing.
The editor of the Anglo-Ukrainian News who attended the eightday trial of Staschynski as an observer for the 30,000 Ukrainians now in Great Britain has said : "Staschynski told the court he had never been to England."
A Bonn Government spokesman, however, has said that during the investigations of Staschynski's career as a secret service agent, a name similar to Fr. Borynski's was mentioned. It is believed that this similarity of names led to the I-killed-priest reports headlined this week.
There is no doubt in the minds of the 3,000 • Poles in Bradford. however, that Fr. Borynski has been murdered by SOMenne.
A spokesman for the Polish F.xCombatants Association of Britain says: "We have always maintained that Fr. Borynski was murdered."
Canon E. Chowaniec, priest-incharge of the Polish church of Our Lady of Czestochowa, at Bradford, says: "None of us believe he is alive. He was a big man—six feet tall and 15 stone—and could not have been abducted and silenced easily."
AGENTS' RING
Canon Henryk Czorny, Senior Polish Chaplain for the West Riding of Yorkshire, says: "I was one of the last people to see Fr. Borynski alive. I have always believed that he might have stumbled on a Soviet secret service ring in Bradford. Russian agents were known to be working in Bradford at the time of Fr. 13orynski's disappearance. If Fr. Borynski had found out who they were, they might have regarded him as too dangerous to have around. He may have known too much.
"I think Fr. Borynski had some information that the Russian agents wanted to be kept quiet, but if they thought that they could intimidate us by removing the strongest pillar of the Polish cornmunity in Bradford they were wrong. People have got together more, and there has been increased unity since Fr. Borynski's disappearance."
Fr. Borynski, aged 42, cis
appeared from Bradford on July 13. 1953, after receiving two telephone calls luring him away from his presbytery. He had been ten months in Bradford. Police decided that his disappearance was not voluntary, but failed to find any clue to his whereabouts. A motive put forward later was that he had been killed to show the power of espionage agencies which were trying to win over Polish exiles.
Fr. Jozcf Dryzalowski, Polish chaplain at nearby Huddersfield, who knew Fr. Borynski for some 20 years, said this week: "He was not a political figure. I-le was essentially a man of God. His life was full of spiritual and social activity on behalf of his Polish community."
Special prayers for Fr. Borynski were offered in several Polish churches throughout Britain this week, and special Masses are to be offered this Sunday.




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