A journalist who has investigated the activities of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s family attorney and ruling party MP Roman Giertych has been detained for three months on allegations of illegally owning an air pistol and making threats against a police chief.
Award-winning independent investigative journalist Leszek Kraskowski, who has for over 20 years investigated allegations of the abuse of power and corruption against all governments, was deprived of his right to legal counsel for several days after his arrest on June 6 and subsequently placed in pre-trial detention for three months by order of a court issued on June 9.
Only a few hours passed between a complaint filed on the day of the arrest by the head of a local police department near Warsaw and the search of the journalist’s home and his detention.
According to the prosecutors controlled by the centre-left government led by Donald Tusk, Kraskowski sent an email containing threats against the life of a local police chief in the town of Piaseczno and is alleged to have written a threatening social media post. The prosecutors have also reported that Kraskowski has been accused of aggressive behaviour against his family and that a psychiatric assessment of the detainee has been ordered.
A search was carried out on Saturday, during which a gas pistol was found in the journalist’s possession. Prosecutors submitted a petition to the court requesting that Kraskowski be held in pre-trial detention for three months on June 8 and a day later the Piaseczno town district court approved that request even though no defence lawyer was present.
According to unofficial findings reported by Niezalezna, the case concerns an Italian-made Bruni Mod. P4 9 mm P.A.K. alarm pistol, a device available for purchase online for a few hundred złoty and not adapted to firing live ammunition.
As sources available online indicate, it is not adapted for firing live ammunition and does not constitute a firearm designed to discharge projectiles. The P4 model operates using 9 mm P.A.K. (Pistole Automatik Knall) cartridges, i.e. blank or gas ammunition intended for alarm pistols. An alarm pistol of this type can be purchased online, and its cost is around €75.
Kraskowski’s attorney Łukasz Pawelski was informed about his client’s arrest just minutes before the court hearing and could not make it on time. According to the prosecutors they tried to contact the attorney on the day before the court hearing but the defence lawyer says there was just one call which he twice tried to return without success and no text message or email.
On June 11 Pawelski had still not been able to meet his detained client and had not been handed documentation relating to the case. The attorney does not even officially know where Kraskowski is being held.
He reminds that even though the law guarantees a temporary detainee access to their attorney that request has to be approved by the prosecutor and that in this case this has not as yet been granted, “a very curious situation which puts into doubt the right to my client’s defence”.
However Pawelski has discovered that accusations about alleged aggression against daily members have emerged after and not before he was arrested and may relate to the fact that in his private life Kraskowski is currently engaged in acrimonious divorce proceedings. The accusations of alleged aggression were used by prosecutors as part of the justification for the three months detention ordered by the court
Pawelski also claims that Kraskowski does not use the email account from which the death threats against a local police chief are alleged to have been made.
In months preceding his arrest, Kraskowski had filed a criminal complaint concerning an incident at his home.
Kraskowski alleges that he was attacked by an unidentified assailant.
“Some guy in Piaseczno was waving a knife in my face and holding a canister of pepper spray in his other hand repeating: ‘You’ve crossed the wrong people. You have seven days to leave the country, otherwise we’ll finish you off. We’ll throw you out of your house. We’ll kill you. Get the hell out to Albania.
‘I’ll stab you, and when the police arrive, I’ll say you attacked me and that it was self-defence’”, the assailant is claimed to have said.
According to Kraskowski it took the police three hours to arrive, identified the alleged assailant and let him go after the man had denied he had said anything or used any weapons in approaching the journalist.
Kraskowski has for years been investigating Roman Giertych, the Tusk family’s attorney and currently also a MP for the ruling Civic Coalition (KO) in connection with allegations that Giertych took part in a money laundering operation involving one of his clients.
Giertych was charged in connection with the allegations during the time of the last Conservative (PiS) administration and left the country for one of his residences in Italy before returning to the country to fight the election in 2023.
After the election Giertych initiated the investigation against former PiS ministers in connection with allegations about misappropriation of funds from the Justice Fund that led to indictments against former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro. Charges against Giertych relating to the laundering allegations have been dropped by the prosecutors.
Before becoming a close ally of Tusk, Giertych had led the right-wing League of Polish Families party that after opposing Poland’s accession to the EU was a part of the ruling coalition led by PiS between 2005 and 2007. Giertych served as deputy PM and education minister in that government but fell out with PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and has since been one of PiS’s biggest enemies.
Following the alleged assault on him and an alleged firing of pellets at his car, Kraskowski spent some time in Albania to which he often travels. During his stay in Albania a notice was issued for his arrest as a result of a private defamation suit filed by Jan Piński, a journalist who is a friend and ally of Giertych.
According to Kraskowski that detention order was legally flawed because pre-trail detention cannot be initiated via a private prosecution.
After returning home and learning that the police had made no progress in investigating the offences he alleged had been committed against him, Kraskowski reacted angrily on platform X posting that he no longer had any confidence in the police being able to protect him and was “taking matters into his hands”, attaching a photo of an air gun. The post was later used in the prosecution’s case against him before the court.
His frequent travel to Albania was also used as an argument in the prosecution’s detention petition to the court as being evidence of a serious flight risk.
Kraskowski’s situation has sparked protests from Poland’s journalistic community and parts of the political scene with statements issued by journalistic organisations, including the Polish Journalists Association and Press Club Polska, as well as the country’s Ombudsman Marcin Wiącek who has called for an investigation.
The state media regulator (KRRiTV) has called the arrest “drastic action” which follows documented provocations against other media such as the police acting on false alarms about events taking place in the homes of TV Republika journalists.
KRRiTV in its statement on the case says that “freedom of speech is always threatened when the government of the day takes action against journalists that are critical of it”.
Robert Mazurek, commentator for popular YouTube broadcaster Kanał Zero slammed the authorities’ actions.
“If as the prosecution hints Kraskowski is in need of psychiatric care why has he been detained in prison rather than being sent to a psychiatric hospital on observation?” he asked.
Mazurek also suspects the whole case may relate to Roman Giertych taking revenge on a journalist who had investigated him and the present justice minister wanting to appease Tusk’s attorney.
“It is common knowledge that Tusk is dissatisfied with the results of the work of the present justice minister Waldemar Żurek because the campaign of pursuing former PiS officials is not yielding results and rumours about Giertych replacing Żurek are circulating. Therefore the minister is under pressure and may be more willing than before to please both Tusk and his attorney Giertych”, argues Mazurek.
The opposition PiS believes that the case is political and aimed at scaring journalists.
“We have gone down the path of Lukashenko and Putin,” commented PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński on X.
“If those in power are conducting a hunt for independent journalists and putting them in prison, it is a sign not of strength, but of weakness,” Kaczyński wrote.
Former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro also condemned the action.
“A new, dangerous reality is emerging in Poland, selective authoritarianism. A demoralised government has turned the justice system into a tool of repression against those who most effectively challenge its interests. Today, these methods are being used against an investigative journalist who has become a thorn in the authorities’ side. In the future, they may be used against anyone who stands in their way or becomes too troublesome for them”, said Ziobro.
The European Commission has on several occasions in its rule of law reports on member states criticised Poland for its temporary detention regime, voicing concerns that it is being used as a way of extracting confessions and punishment without trial. However no Polish government of any political colour has seen fit to act to restrict the practice.
