In Autumn 2001, the then 25-year-old Olewnik, the son of a businessman from the Mazowieckie voivodship, was kidnapped from his house and held for ransom. The kidnappers, however, kept delaying the pick-up of the ransom money, changing their minds about the place and time.
A ransom of R300,000 (zł.1,272,000 unadjusted) was finally paid in 2003, but the kidnappers refused to release their hostage and severed contact with his family. Several weeks later they killed Olewnik. His body was discovered in 2006.
The gang of kidnappers was captured in 2007 and confessed that Olewnik had been kept chained to the wall of a garage for two years. In June 2007 one hanged himself in his prison cell. Two weeks ago the District Court in Płock convicted seven men connected with the crime. The lightest sentence was eight years and two of the men, including the one who committed suicide last week, got life.
Even so, the Olewnik family claimed that the list of the accused was too short and that someone in a much higher position must have been responsible for the crime. They claimed the criminal investigation was hindered by a series of suspiciously coincidental acts of negligence.
For example, a car containing all the documentation concerning the case was stolen in Warsaw. In addition, when the ransom was paid the police failed to arrive at the scene of the exchange, despite having allegedly agreed to come. The police also repeatedly accused Krzysztof Olewnik of being responsible for his own disappearance.
Former Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro will call for a Sejm investigation commission to look into the issue and current Justice Minister Zbigniew Ćwiškalski has promised to help the family.
Meanwhile, the victim's father is certain that some of the guilty parties remain free. "This is the only thing that keeps me alive - just to catch them."
