Poland
Police arrest PiS politician after escaping into the presidential palace
President Andrzej Duda (m.) poses with the convicted Pis politicians Maciej Wasik (2nd from left) and Mariusz Kaminski (2nd from right) in the presidential palace. photo
© President Palace/Jakub Szymczuk/AP/dpa
Poland’s President Duda is offering protection in his palace to two PiS MPs who have been legally sentenced to prison. The police can only take them away in the evening.
A little later, the astonished Poles found out from a post from the Presidential Office on Platform X where the wanted people were: at a reception given by Head of State Andrzej Duda in the Presidential Palace. They stayed there for several hours – they were finally arrested in the evening, as the police in Warsaw announced on X.
Conflict between the old and new government camp
What seems like a farce is actually the escalation of a conflict between the new and old government camps in Poland, which could turn into a national crisis for the EU and NATO country. The power struggle between the center-left government of Donald Tusk, which has been in office since December 15th, and the voted out national conservative PiS, from whose camp President Duda also comes, has escalated. A parliamentary session originally planned for Wednesday was postponed until next week due to the chaotic situation. Tusk threatened Duda and PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski that they would be held responsible for “sabotage of the constitution.”
In the meantime, it looked as if the PiS MPs wanted by arrest warrant had found protection in President Duda’s palace. In the afternoon, Kaminski and Wasik spoke up in the courtyard. “We are not hiding. Right now we are with Poland’s president until evil loses,” Kaminski said. He didn’t say how long they planned to stay there. In the evening the police entered the area and arrested the politicians. According to Polish media reports, Duda is said to have left the building beforehand.
The case of the two PiS politicians has a long history
In 2015, immediately after the PiS came to power, Duda pardoned Kaminski and Wasik in a controversial decision. Both had previously been sentenced in the first instance to three years in prison for abuse of office. The reason for the conviction was an affair uncovered in 2007, in which the anti-corruption agency, then headed by Kaminski, was said to have deliberately orchestrated a corruption case in order to discredit the then Agriculture Minister Andrzej Lepper. Kaminski and Wasik appealed the verdict.
Last June, the Supreme Court overturned the presidential pardon of Kaminski and Wasik. According to the verdict, only those who have been legally convicted can be pardoned. Both had to face the trial again. At the end of December, the Warsaw District Court sentenced her to two years in prison. The court also ordered that both PiS politicians should not hold public office for five years and should lose their parliamentary mandate.
Duda had emphasized several times in the past few days that, in his opinion, the pardon continued to apply – but leading constitutional lawyers in Poland saw it differently. Both politicians had announced that they wanted to continue to fulfill their mandate as representatives and appear at parliamentary sessions.
Harsh words from Tusk
In the afternoon, a visibly upset Prime Minister Tusk sent clear words to Duda: “Mr. President, my fervent appeal for the good of the Polish state: you must stop this spectacle. It will lead us into a very dangerous situation.” The actions targeted the foundations of the state.
With regard to the president’s behavior, Tusk also quoted from the Polish penal code: “Anyone who obstructs or frustrates criminal proceedings by helping a criminal to evade criminal responsibility (…) will be punished with a prison sentence of three months to up to punished for five years.” And he warned: Duda and PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski would be held responsible for their actions. The arrest took place a few hours later.