After almost two weeks in custody, Poland’s ex-interior minister Kaminski and his former colleague leave prison. President Duda pardoned them. This threatens to cause new trouble for the government.
After being pardoned again by President Andrzej Duda, two former members of the elected national-conservative PiS government who were convicted of abuse of office have been released from prison. Former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski left the prison in Radom near Warsaw in the evening, the PAP news agency reported. His former state secretary Maciej Wasik, who was imprisoned in Przytuly Stare in the north-east of the country, was also released.
A few hours earlier, the president, who comes from the ranks of the PiS, announced that he had pardoned the two politicians for a second time. The dispute over the fate of Kaminski and Wasik has become a central point in the dispute between the center-left government of Donald Tusk and the PiS with its ally Duda in recent weeks.
The PiS MPs were arrested and taken to prison on January 9th after initially seeking protection in the presidential palace. The PiS has since described the two as “political prisoners”. Kaminski went on hunger strike right at the start of his detention.
Long history – the case began in 2015
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.
This last point could now cause renewed political controversy following the release of Kaminski and Wasik. The PiS does not recognize the court-ordered loss of parliamentary mandates. However, Parliament President Szymon Holownia, whose Third Way party is a coalition partner of Tusk, had already excluded both MPs. “Mr. Tusk, Mr. Holownia, we’ll see each other again soon,” said Wasik after his release.
