Radom. She was accused of trying to free a refugee from the center. There is a sentence for the activist

According to the indictment, the activist was supposed to try to free a Kurd detained in the Guarded Center for Foreigners in Lesznowola (Masovian Voivodeship). The District Court in Radom passed a judgment in this case.

It concerns the events of June 2022. In the Guarded Center for Foreigners in Lesznowola, the refugees detained there – Kurds from Iraq and Turkey – started a hunger strike as a protest. The men demanded to be transferred to open centers.

SEE ALSO: Protest of Kurds detained in the center in Lesznowola. Comments from activists and experts.

During the strike, a 35-year-old Kurd with Turkish citizenship lost consciousness. He was taken first to the Emergency Department of the hospital in Grójec, and then to the psychiatric hospital in Radom. Maria Książak, a psychologist and well-known activist of an organization helping refugees, as his representative, tried to contact him while he was undergoing treatment. She demanded that the man – due to his health condition – be transported to an open center.

The prosecutor's office accused her of impersonating a Border Guard employee and trying to secure the release of a person deprived of liberty on the basis of a court decision or a legal order issued by another state authority. She faced a penalty of up to three years in prison.

As written in the indictment, she was to undertake activities related to transporting a Turkish citizen in a Border Guard car to a center for victims of torture, but she did not achieve her goal because Border Guard officers intervened.

“Actions solely for humanitarian reasons”

The court in Radom found the activist innocent because her goal was not to illegally release a Turkish citizen.

“All actions taken by the accused resulted solely from humanitarian reasons and were aimed solely at providing help to a foreigner in a difficult situation who, as a result of the hunger strike undertaken at the Center in Lesznowola, was in poor health and had to be hospitalized,” the court said.

Justifying the sentence, the judge noted that the activist had no reasons to pose as a Border Guard officer. According to the court, Książak, as the refugee's attorney, had the right to obtain information about his health, and the power of attorney was sent to the hospital by e-mail.

The court also pointed out that the activist did not impersonate a Border Guard employee during conversations with doctors. As it turned out, she was simply misunderstood by one of the doctors, who mistook her for a representative of the Border Guard.

The judgment is not final.