Mugger guilty of killing death camp survivor, 100
AMUGGER has been convicted over the death of a frail 100-year-old Nazi prison camp survivor following a street robbery.
Self-confessed heroin addict Artur Waszkiewicz knocked Zofija Kaczan to the ground, took her handbag and left her to bleed in the middle of the road as she made her way to church on May 28 last year.
Polish-born widow Mrs Kaczan survived a Nazi labour camp during the Second World War, in which she was forced to work in factories and was sentenced to death on her birthday.
She suffered multiple injuries in the attack, including a fractured neck and cheekbone.
Mrs Kaczan died from pneumonia in hospital on June 6 – a condition brought on by the injuries she sustained in the attack.
A jury of seven men and five women at Derby Crown Court found Waszkiewicz guilty of killing her near the junction of St Chads Road and Empress Road in Normanton, Derby.
They unanimously convicted Waszkiewicz of manslaughter and robbery.
The defendant, wearing a black velvet jacket and velvet slipper shoes, looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as the verdicts were delivered.
Addressing the jury, the judge said: “The sentence will inevitably be one of lengthy imprisonment. Mr Waszkiewicz knows that.”
The centenarian had been separated from her family in Poland during the war, but had managed to “find peace” with her husband after coming to Derby in 1948.
Friends said she did not want to celebrate her 100th birthday because the day marked the same day of the year when she was sentenced to death by the Nazis.
Waszkiewicz, 40, was caught on CCTV driving a Seat Leon car he bought from his father minutes before robbing Mrs Kaczan – slowing down as soon as he saw a “small, vulnerable” woman on her own.
His trial heard he needed an “easy target” to steal from so he could meet a drug dealer a short time later to buy £20 worth of heroin.
The force he used in the attack ripped the handle off her handbag.
Waszkiewicz, of Hilary Road in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.