Five activists accused of helping migrants near the Belarusian border with Poland have been definitively acquitted after prosecutors abruptly dropped their appeal.
A district court in Białystok confirmed it would no longer examine the case after the Hajnówka prosecutor’s office withdrew its challenge at the request of Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek. With no appeal remaining, the earlier acquittal has now become legally binding.
The group had initially faced prison sentences. However, a review ordered at the national level concluded that overturning the original ruling was unlikely.
Anna Adamiak, spokesperson for the Prosecutor General, said the decision followed a detailed legal assessment of both the first-instance judgment and the prosecution’s arguments. “The Prosecutor General found that the ruling of the court of first instance was correct in substance, in terms of the evaluation of the evidence and the legal and criminal assessment, and the court justified its position in a reliable and convincing manner. Therefore, in the Prosecutor General’s opinion, an appeal would have no chance of success,” she said, as cited by TVN24.
The case stems from events in March 2022, when four of the five defendants were detained while transporting migrants. Investigators initially accused them of aiding illegal border crossings involving individuals from Egypt and Iraq, before later revising the charges to facilitating unlawful stay in Poland.
One of the accused was also alleged to have provided food, clothing, shelter, and advice to migrants hiding in the forest along the border. The remaining four were charged with transporting them within Polish territory.
In September last year, a court in Hajnówka acquitted all five, ruling that the legal criteria for conviction had not been met.
The judgment hinged on the interpretation of Article 264a of Poland’s penal code, which requires proof that assistance to migrants was carried out for financial or personal gain. The prosecution had argued that the personal gain test had been satisfied by the migrants receiving assistance.
“If we accept this interpretation of this legal norm, then every foreigner who reaches Polish territory, or the territory of the EU, gains personal benefit because that’s what they want,” Judge Adam Rodakowski said in his ruling.
He warned that such reasoning would effectively criminalize any form of assistance to migrants and that the benefit must be gained by the defendant. The court found no evidence that the defendants had acted for profit or personal advantage.
While the court accepted that the group had helped migrants remain in Poland, it also concluded there was no proof they had assisted in illegal border crossings.
