GORGOROTH: 'Black Mass In Krakow' DVD May Get Released After All

According to a posting on GORGOROTH's official web site, the Norwegian black metallers were questioned in Norwegian court (Bergen Tingrett) on Wednesday (March 2) in connection with a February 2004 incident when they were accused of "offending religious feelings" during a concert in Poland. The band were also suspected of breaching the Polish law on protection of animals by displaying the severed and impaled heads of sheep as part of their stage act. "Now it's up to the Polish authorities to clarify this matter and eventually return the master tapes so that the 'Black Mass in Krakow' DVD can be released," reads a posting on the group's web site.

As previously reported, a spokesperson for the public prosecutor in Krakow, southern Poland, said last year that they might ask for Norwegian help in questioning members of GORGOROTH in order to determine whether Article 196 of the Polish penal code (concerning offense to religious feelings) has been breached or not during the band's concert in Krakow on Feb. 1, 2004. The maximum penalty for breaching the article is five years in prison.

The group, who are accused of having offended religious feelings by displaying naked women, covered in blood and being crucified, also displayed sheep heads, severed and impaled, with the stage splashed with their blood. [Check out photos from the gig at this location]

"We are also looking into whether the law on protection of animals has been breached," the spokesperson, Miroslawa Kalinowska-Zajdak, said last February.

Kalinowska-Zajdak said the prosecutor was following up a complaint from the head of a local television station who rented a TV studio to GORGOROTH for the concert, recorded for a DVD.

The local television in Krakow, which complained about the performance, had acquired broadcasting rights for the show, Kalinowska-Zajdak said.