A court in the Polish city of Szczecin sentenced ruling party MP Stanisław Gawłowski to five years in prison for engaging in bribing public officials.
Gawkowski was a senator from the Civic Coalition (KO) party led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He was tried concerning irregularities in 26 investment projects overseen by the West Pomeranian Board of Drainage and Water Facilities in Szczecin, which began in January 2020 and ended with his sentencing on July 31.
The investigation that led to the trial began in 2013 and produced indictments of 32 individuals, eight of whom pleaded guilty.
The prosecutors presented 94 indictments against the accused, which included bribery and money laundering.
The central issue of the investigation concerned the alleged rigging of tenders for drainage works, which were co-financed by multimillion-euro European Union subsidies.
Gawłowski, a senior figure in Tusk’s KO, served as deputy environment minister from 2007 to 2015 before serving as the party’s secretary general between 2016 and 2018.
He was indicted on seven counts, including five related to corruption.
The prosecution asked the court to sentence him to 6.5 years in prison and to fine him €40,000.
The court found Gawkowski guilty and gave him a five-year prison term, a €40,000 fine and debarred him from holding public office for a period of 10 years.
The politician was said to be likely to appeal the court’s verdict. Should he lose his appeal he could take the matter to the Supreme Court, asking for the verdict to be annulled.
If he lost these appeals he could still request a presidential pardon but, since the presidency will for the next five years be held by the opposition Conservatives (PiS)-aligned Karol Nawrocki, his chances were said to be doubtful.
The court’s verdict in the Gawłowski case marks a setback and embarrassment for the Tusk government, which has alleged that it was PiS officials who, in the lifetime of the PiS government (2015-2023), indulged in corruption and fraud.
Public prosecutors have issued a whole raft of indictments against former PiS government officials, none of which has yet come to court.
Gawłowski was not the only KO official to have been indicted under the previous PiS government.
In the most prominent case to date, Sławomir Nowak, a former transport minister and close ally of Tusk, is facing alleged corruption charges relating to his time in Ukraine when he managed that country’s motorway building programme.
