Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he was opposed to deporting a Ukrainian man detained in Poland on suspicion of being involved in the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022.
The man, who cannot be named according to Polish law, was detained on October 3 on suspicion of being involved in the destruction of the pipelines that linked Germany and Russia.
On October 6, a Polish common court agreed to detain him for another 40 days pending a final decision on his extradition to Germany, the country which had issued the Interpol warrant for his arrest.
Tusk said yesterday that, although the decision had to be taken by the judiciary, the government’s view was that “it is certainly not in the interest of Poland or in the interest of a simple sense of decency and justice to accuse or hand over this citizen to another State”.
He added that the Ukrainian “was detained because this is the legal procedure, but the position of the Polish Government has not changed”.
According to Tusk’s earlier post on X: “The problem with North Stream 2 is not that it was blown up. The problem is that it was built”.
That was a reference to Poland’s consistent opposition to a pipeline that cut both Poland and Ukraine out of the transit of future gas supplies from Russia to western Europe.
Tusk’s remarks came in the aftermath of former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s remarks on October 3. She claimed Poland and the Baltic States had opposed a 2021 European Union peace initiative to solve the Russia-Ukraine conflict over the Donbas that might have, in Merkel’s view, prevented the war with Russia that broke out in 2022.
The view of the Polish Government, opposition and President is that it is misguided policies pursued by Germany of making Europe dependent on Russian gas and oil that had given Russia the resources needed for launching aggression against its neighbours.
The Ukrainian’s defence attorney Tymoteusz Paprocki told Polish media that German officers participated in the operation carried out in a Warsaw suburb where the man lives with his family. That included a search of his apartment and the removal of diving equipment belonging to him.
Bartosz Lewandowski, a prominent attorney who works with the Conservative legal think-tank Ordo Iuris said he saw no grounds for German involvement in such activities since German security services have no jurisdiction on Polish territory.
“German authorities have no right to carry out any procedural actions on Polish territory,” said Lewandowski. “Even if the German side issued a European Investigation Order or a European Arrest Warrant, it would be Polish law enforcement officers who would execute the action,” he said.
“Only in a very limited scope of activity within Polish territory, namely in the border area, may German services exceptionally carry out operations on the basis of the 2015 Polish-German agreement,” noted Lewandowski, who expressed bemusement at the Germans’ involvement in the Ukrainian’s detention
“But how on earth can German services just walk in near Warsaw, conduct a search and remove evidence?” he queried.
The destruction of three out of the four Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which transported natural gas from Russia to Germany, occurred on September 26, 2022.
According to the German prosecutor’s office, the perpetrators used a yacht rented in Rostock under false documents and through intermediaries.
Investigators determined that divers attached at least four explosive charges to the pipelines and were then transported back to Ukraine after the operation.
