Polish author convicted of taking part in murder similar to grisly killing in his novel

WROCLAW, Poland -- A regional court convicted an author of directing the killing of a local businessman in a crime that bore eerie similarities to a grisly murder he described in a novel three years later.

The court ruled that Krystian Bala planned and led the killing of Dariusz Janiszewski, but ruled there was not sufficient evidence to convict him of carrying out the murder. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Bala, 34, sat stone-faced between two policemen as Judge Lidia Hojenska read the court's verdict. Bala's family and lawyer said they planned to appeal the ruling.

"Justice was served, but the verdict will never be adequate to the crime," said Janiszewski's father, Tadeusz, who held a photo of his dead son on the wooden table in front of him during the hearing.

"It's tough to talk about being happy with it because nothing will bring my son back."

Fishermen dragged Janiszewski's corpse - stripped to a shirt and underwear - from the muddy banks of the Oder River in southwestern Poland on December 10, 2000.

Police quickly identified the dead man as Janiszewski, who had disappeared four weeks earlier. But they struggled to dig up clues and dropped the case after six months.

Five years later, a tip led them to Bala's 2003 novel "Amok," an alcohol- and sex-fueled tale told by a man named Chris who stabs a woman after binding her hands behind her back and then running the rope to a noose around her neck. The similarities quickly attracted investigators' suspicions, although the parallels were not part of their case to the panel of judges.