29 June, 2006
Polish police have arrested a man with neo-Nazi links over an anti-Semitic attack on Poland's chief rabbi, an assault that provoked a chorus of international condemnation. Grand Rabbi Michael Schudrich was insulted and sprayed with tear gas in a Warsaw street May 27, the day before he was due to say the Jewish prayer for the dead at a ceremony led by Pope Benedict XVI at the former Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in southern Poland. National police chief Marek Bienkowski told a press conference the man detained Wednesday had admitted to attacking Schudrich after police found a tear gas canister in his home. Bienkowski did not reveal which neo-Nazi group the suspect had links with. He vowed that police "will have zero tolerance for these types of incidents," and announced that a special unit has been created to clamp down on "all sorts of attacks on religious minorities." The suspect, a 33-year-old Warsaw resident, has previously been sentenced for attacking a police officer and for destroying property during a football match. He faces a jail term of up to five years if convicted.
The Grand Rabbi was not injured in the street attack and went on to take part in ceremonies at Auschwitz-Birkenau led by Benedict XVI, who was carrying out a four-day visit to Poland at the time. Polish President Lech Kaczynski vowed "zero tolerance" for anti-semitism in the wake of the incident. Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz told Schudrich, a US citizen, that he was "deeply shocked" by the attack. Schudrich has previously placed part of the blame for the assault on the entry of a far-right party into Poland's coalition government, saying it "empowers nationalists and those who run around shouting unpleasant things." The nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR) entered the governing conservative coalition last month and LPR leader Roman Giertych, a third generation far-right activist, was appointed deputy premier and education minister. The Israeli foreign ministry has said the ultra-Catholic LPR has "an anti-semitic ideology".
