Opposition politicians on “mentally abused” priest. Prison Service speaks out

One of the suspects in the investigation into the Justice Fund, Father Michał O., was transported on Friday from the detention center in Warsaw's Służewiec to the Warsaw-Mokotów District Court, where he was questioned.

Photos from the event appeared on social media, shared on their profiles by, among others, many politicians from Law and Justice and Sovereign Poland.

“A mentally abused priest who had no contact with his loved ones for a long time. Emaciated, in terrible physical shape. He has been in custody for a long time – and yet he should be held free,” said the former prime minister. Mateusz Morawiecki“This is not the 80s and martial law. This is 'smiling' Poland. Today,” he added.

“A priest, emaciated, with a rosary around his neck, held behind bars for many months by politicized judges. Deliberately, to humiliate and destroy him. The judge, promoted by Adam Bodnar's people, immediately after the priest's arrest was extended, knows how to repay Bodnar and to this day, breaking the law, has not prepared a justification for her decision. Without it, the priest's defenders cannot appeal. And this is the rule of law in the Tusk/Bodnar version,” wrote the leader of Sovereign Poland Zbigniew Ziobro.

“The times and methods of the Security Service are long gone, but as you can see, Mr. Bodnar likes to go back to the old days,” said the MEP. PIS Michal Dworczyk.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin wrote that “a Russian agent spent two weeks at the ABW headquarters reviewing the investigation files, having access to a lot of sensitive information”. “During this time, the priest, who wanted to help victims of violence, was in custody, and his defenders were not allowed to familiarize themselves with the case files. The proud and robust Russian spy returned to his principals, while the mentally and physically exhausted priest Olszewski remains in prison. A symbol of Tusk's total power”, he wrote.

In this case, Interia asked the Prison Service how it deals with such comments from opposition politicians and what the actual situation of Father Michał O. was during his time in custody.

As we read in the response to Interia's questions, the Prison Service – in accordance with the applicable regulations – “cannot provide detailed information about persons deprived of liberty or about persons who have left a prison or detention center.”

“I would like to point out, however, that the conditions in which the above-mentioned prisoner is staying are subject to ongoing supervision. It is not true that Fr. Michał O. was 'starved and mistreated'. In the case described by the mass media, verification activities were undertaken, which did not indicate any violation of the provisions of the executive criminal procedure. The information appearing in the media regarding the unlawful actions of the Prison Service officers is completely untrue,” the spokeswoman for the Director General of the Prison Service, Lt. Col. Arleta Pęconek, told Interia.

At the end of August, the District Court in Warsaw decided to extend the stay by another three months. temporary arrest of priest Michał O. and two officials of the Ministry of Justice suspected in the investigation into the Justice Fund. The prosecutor's office presented three suspects new allegations “participating in an organized criminal group aimed at committing crimes against property.”

The prosecutors' other allegations concern, among other things, the payment of over PLN 66 million from the Justice Fund to the Profeto Foundation, which – in the prosecutors' opinion – did not meet the formal and substantive requirements to receive this money. The officials who decided to grant these funds – as reported by the National Prosecutor's Office – were supposed to have acted jointly and in agreement with the president of the foundation, Father O.

READ ALSO: “This was supposed to be money given under the table.” We reveal new details about the grant for the Profeto Foundation

How did she rate it? Supreme Audit Officethe Profeto Foundation received money from the Justice Fund in the years 2020-2024, although it “had no experience in implementing tasks in the field of assistance to crime victims” and its statutory objectives “did not include such activity”. The offer, however, “focused on the construction of a facility (purchase of land and construction work), which was to last for the first three years of the task's implementation. The activities that were obligatory under the competition (actual provision of assistance to crime victims) were to be implemented only in the last year of the subsidy agreement, and 6.8% of the subsidy expenditure was earmarked for their financing”.

The idea of ​​the Foundation was to create a center for helping people affected by violence, called “Archipelago – islands free from violence”. A facility for this purpose was to be built in the capital city of Wilanów on a plot of 1.2 ha. According to the information of the Foundation, the Center was to have 12 places for 24-hour short-term stay.

At the end of January 2024, the Justice Fund website announced that payments had been suspended for “agreements on assistance to victims, post-penitentiary assistance and counteracting the causes of crime (awarded both in competitive and non-competitive mode).” This included the Profeto Foundation.

The foundation's representative explained in the statement that the foundation had fulfilled its obligations as a condition for receiving the subsidy for 2024 by submitting project implementation reports for the first half of 2023, which was approved on August 23, 2023, and had also documented its own contribution for 2024 in the amount of PLN 1,615,000. After meeting these conditions, an agreement was signed on September 20, 2023 (amended on October 24, 2023), in which the ministry undertook to transfer the subsidy for 2024 in the amount of PLN 28,403,700 by January 14, 2024.

In July, tvn24.pl and OKO.press found that the first investigation into subsidies for Profeto was discontinued by the prosecutor’s office in 2022, when the prosecutor general was Zbigniew Ziobro, a private friend of Father Michał O.