Andrzej Duda issued a statement regarding the pardon of Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik. Politicians’ comments

President Andrzej Duda announced on Tuesday that the files related to the pardon proceedings against Wąsik and Kamiński were returned to him from the Ministry of Justice with a negative opinion; the procedure has been completed. – The decision regarding the law of grace has been issued. Messrs. Kamiński and Wąsik have been pardoned, he announced.

Read more: President’s statement. “I appeal for the immediate release of Kamiński and Wąsik”

Politicians from the ruling coalition and opposition parties are commenting on the president’s decision.

“The President – this time correctly – exercised his right of mercy towards criminals. That’s all,” wrote the Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Witold Zembaczyński (KO) said in the “Tak Jest” program on TVN24: – I look at the president’s behavior and I never cease to be surprised. How is it possible that the head of state takes responsibility for actions that will be judged by history, perhaps by tribunals and criminal courts, and is able to lie to his own citizens so easily – he said.

– The president did not look at these files (from the prosecutor general – ed.). Because if he read them carefully, it would turn out that he would perhaps realize how deeply he manipulates public opinion by referring to Kamiński and Wąsik as political prisoners. No, these are simply politicians who committed crimes, Zembaczyński said.

According to MP Marcin Bosacki (KO), “the president is against the law and the state, and on the side of criminals who used the services to persecute their opponents.” “The fight for a democratic, law-abiding Republic of Poland continues. Not a step back,” he wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter).

Minister for the European Union Adam Szłapka (KO) wrote on the X platform: “Bandits pardoned. A pardon is not an acquittal. They will remain bandits.”

MP Paweł Śliz (Poland 2050-Third Way) regrets that the president “could not behave like a real president.” “I regret that you have contempt for the justice system and court judgments. I regret that, as a graduate of my alma mater, you do not know the law. I regret that, in your opinion, people are equal and more equal in Poland,” he wrote.

The co-chair of the Confederation, Sławomir Mentzen, wrote that he did not understand the allegations that the president “pardoned criminals.”

“After all, this is the essence of pardon. Moreover, the whole dispute was about whether you can only pardon a criminal or someone who has not been convicted. It’s good that he pardoned them and shortened the front of this war destroying Poland a bit,” said the Confederation MP.

Arkadiusz Mularczyk (PiS) said in “Tak Jest”: – What happened around this case is absolute lawlessness. For the first time since 1989, two active parliamentarians and ministers were imprisoned for fighting corruption crimes as a result of political revenge.

Former head of the Ministry of National Defense, Mariusz Błaszczak (PiS), wrote on the X platform that “in a law-abiding country, you get decorations for fighting corruption.” “Only in Tusk’s country can you go to prison for this. Thanks to President Andrzej Duda, the illegally imprisoned Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik are released. Marshal Hołownia is now obliged to enable our MPs to fulfill their mandates,” he emphasized.

PiS MP Michał Wójcik wrote that “unlawfully imprisoned parliamentarians are pardoned despite the actions of barbarians.”

Both Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik stayed legally sentenced by the Warsaw district court for failure to fulfill obligations and exceeding powers. This concerns the period from December 14, 2006 to July 5, 2007 and activities related to the so-called land scandal. During this period, Mariusz Kamiński was the head of the Central Anticorruption Bureau, and Maciej Wąsik was his deputy. Two other members of the then CBA management were also sentenced together with them.

As the district court stated, Mariusz Kamiński “exceeded the powers granted to him and failed to fulfill his obligations” in that he “directed the commission of” a prohibited act by the CBA officers subordinated to him “despite the lack of legal grounds.” The judgment says, among other things: about planning, organizing and implementing “the provocation using the CBA officers carrying out his orders” (including Maciej Wąsik – ed.). He states that he “ordered the initiation of land de-agriculture on the basis of forged documents.” To make this credible – as the court states – “he ordered the forging of a number of documents from government and local government administration offices”, which were mentioned in the judgment.

With regard to Maciej Wąsik, the court stated that he had not fulfilled his obligations in such a way that “by carrying out the instructions of the person submitted, i.e. the Head of the CBA, Mariusz Kamiński, the implementation of which would result in committing a prohibited act, he did not fulfill the obligation arising from Article 71(2) of the cited Act on the CBA, the obligation to refuse to execute an order, and also exceeded his powers by ordering his subordinates to carry out operational and reconnaissance activities (…) despite the lack of legal grounds for their implementation.

The land scandal was a provocation aimed against the then deputy prime minister in Jarosław Kaczyński’s government – Andrzej Lepper. As Konkret24 reminds, in the summer of 2007, the CBA carried out an operation in which two people in the Ministry of Agriculture headed by Lepper were given the so-called a controlled bribe for the de-agriculture of land in Masuria. However, the leak made it difficult to bring the matter to an end. According to the court, Kamiński planned and organized the CBA provocation, ordered one person to be misled and incite corruption, while there were no grounds to initiate a CBA operation in the Ministry of Agriculture. Kamiński’s orders were carried out by his deputy Maciej Wąsik and two officers from the operational and investigative department – we read on Konkret24.