“Everyone is equal before the law,” the new Interior Minister, Marcin Kirwinski, wrote on the X website. Grazyna Ignaczak Bandić, head of the President's Office, told Republika TV business news: Kaminsky and Vasek were guests of the head of state, and the police stormed the presidential palace when President Andrzej Duda had already left because Sviatlana Tsianoszka, accompanied by the Belarusian opposition leader, went to a meeting with members of the Belarusian opposition. .
Many opposition politicians described what happened as a coup. According to former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, there are “political prisoners” in Poland for the first time since the era of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who declared martial law in 1981.
Police storm the presidential palace to arrest opposition representatives who were pardoned by the president
– It can be read in publication
Former Foreign Minister Simon Szynkowski Vel Sek, representing the Law and Justice Party, says what happened “demonstrates the reign of chaos and represents an international disgrace that has not happened since 1989.”
In December, the court sentenced Kaminsky and Vasek to two years' imprisonment for violations they committed in 2007 in the context of the fight against corruption. However, President Andrzej Duda pardoned them in 2015. The pardon sparked a legal dispute, with opponents saying it could not be granted, because the initial ruling was not yet final.
In June this year, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial against Kaminski and Wasek, and based on the ruling in December, the Warsaw District Court began transferring Kaminski and Wasik to prison on Monday.
The police had already tried to arrest the two politicians at their residence on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, Kaminski and Vasek left for the Presidential Palace, where they participated in an official event in the morning at the invitation of Andrzej Duda. In the press conference held in the front yard of the presidential palace in the afternoon, the two politicians confirmed that they are not currently guests of the head of state, but if they enter prison, they will become political prisoners. After the announcement, they returned to the palace.
In his press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Prime Minister Donald Tusk called it worrying that the head of state “is participating in the chaos and conflict that affects the state system.” Citing the criminal law, Tusk stressed that anyone who hides the perpetrator of a crime bears criminal responsibility. He added: Through this quote, he wants to make Duda aware “of what he was involved in.”
According to a statement from the Office of the President of the State, on Tuesday evening, with the participation of Andrzej Duda, the office began consultations regarding what happened.
Cover image: Mariusz Kaminski Source: Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto via Getty Images
