The homes of a former justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, and other figures linked to his Sovereign Poland party, which is allied with Law and Justice (PiS), were raided on Tuesday by the security services on the orders of prosecutors over alleged abuses in the disbursement of public funds.
The acting leader of Sovereign Poland, Patryk Jaki, announced that the authorities had “broken into Ziobro’s house on the orders of Tusk and Bodnar’s neo-prosecutors.” The latter is a reference to Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Justice Minister Adam Bodnar who appointed public prosecutors without the required consultation of the president.
Jaki also confirmed that raids had taken place at the homes of former deputy justice ministers Michał Woś and Marcin Romanowski, both members of Sovereign Poland, as well as another of the party’s MPs, Dariusz Matecki.
Former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who has been in the hospital for months being treated for cancer, was not at home when officers of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) arrived at his premises at 6 a.m. on Tuesday. Without any attempt to contact the former minister, who is still an MP, authorities broke the door down to enter the property and searched the premises without the presence of any other members of the Ziobro family or his lawyers.
Ziobro, during an evening briefing in front of his house, said that he was not contacted because there was an intention to organize a spectacle. “It is, after all, a spectacle of banditry and lawlessness, for which certain individuals will eventually be held responsible,” he told the press, adding that although he is far from being at full strength, he has returned to “counter the lies that have appeared in public opinion.”
The former deputy justice minister, MP Marcin Romanowski, said that the behavior of the prosecutors and security services was reminiscent of “an eastern satrapy” rather than a democracy.
According to Romanowski, “Poland does not have the rule of law anymore and is a place governed by brute force and parliamentary resolutions.” He added that the prosecutor who authorized the searches had been illegally promoted by the current government and therefore her actions should be deemed illegal.
The raids were in connection with grants totaling around 100 million zloty (€23.2 million) made by the justice ministry when it was led by Zbigniew Ziobro to a foundation run by a priest, Michał Olszewski. The money was to be used to build a center for helping victims of crime. Last year, the president of the construction firm building the center was arrested on embezzlement charges relating to the project, and allegations have appeared of other irregularities.
After Tusk’s government took office in December, the justice ministry announced that it had suspended payments to Olszewski’s foundation from its Justice Fund. Olszewski himself has denied any wrongdoing, and the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP), the central organ of the Catholic Church in Poland, has condemned the “grossly unfair media attacks” against him as political.
Marcin Romanowski also defended the grant to the priest’s foundation, as it was for a center that is to help “hundreds of victims of violence,” which is precisely what the Justice fund is for. The Justice Fund was created by the justice ministry in 2012, at a time when Tusk was previously prime minister. It was intended to assist victims of crime and help rehabilitate criminals.
Ziobro has been accused of using the fund for political ends. Patryk Jaki accused the new authorities of using “gangster methods” against its opponents and of investigating the Justice Fund “because only leftist organizations are allowed to receive money.”
