Gdansk. Magdalena Adamowicz’s appeal process has started. Prosecutor wants to “remove some kind of emotion”

The first appeal hearing in the case of the MEP took place in the District Court in Gdańsk Magdalena Adamowicz. The wife of the tragically deceased Mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, is accused of hiding income and miscalculating taxes. The accused did not appear in court.

The appeals process was scheduled to start in February this year. However, due to the judge’s illness, and then at the judge’s request to exclude him from the case, it was adjourned twice.

In June last year, Adamowicz was acquitted of the charges. Appeal against this judgment brought the prosecution.

– You cannot accuse the whole world if you have fundamentally neglected the implementation of standard legal obligations, and they are standard especially from the perspective of a public person who is fully aware of the rights, obligations and consequences of certain violations. And that is why, from the point of view of the prosecution, it was necessary to file an appeal and it is necessary to emphasize these arguments and demand that the proceedings be conducted in full. Especially since the legal aspect of this case was completely missing when it comes to the formulated allegations of the indictment and the position of the indictment, and the court’s verdict – argued on Monday prosecutor Robert Kaczor from the Lower Silesian Department of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Wrocław.

He emphasized that in this case “some kind of emotions, products and messages that do not necessarily reflect the sense of the proceedings must be dismissed.”

– You must forget about any personal or other issues that the accused tried to raise. That the proceedings are of some nature inspired against her, that they are some deliberate action, not necessarily based on the law. (…) It is treated as a normal and natural phenomenon that everyone, regardless of their social position, bears responsibility if shortcomings have been shown, and here these shortcomings have been shown from the beginning – said Kaczor and upheld the motion to set aside the judgment under appeal and refer the case to re-examination.

Magdalena Adamowicz’s attorney, Paweł Knap, pointed out that in the opinion of the defence, the decision of the court of first instance is correct and correct. – The scope of the proceedings was determined by the content of the allegations contained in the indictment. The court of first instance rightly pointed out that with such allegations, not all evidence requests were useful in terms of determining the circumstances relevant to the decision. The court correctly pointed out that while in tax proceedings, the taxpayer is obliged to prove the sources of taxable funds, in penal and fiscal proceedings there is no such obligation on the part of the defendant, he said.

– First of all, I move that the appeal be dismissed. However, as a consequence of the dismissal of the appeal, I also request that the complaint lodged against part of the justification be examined. As indicated in the written complaint, in our opinion, in this respect, the court’s assessment is only the court’s assessment, but it is not an assessment based on evidence that was conducted by the court in the course of the proceedings. Secondly, taking into account the grounds and circumstances as well as the factual and legal justification for the acquittal, the considerations in this respect are irrelevant from the point of view of the decision and the judgment issued by the court of first instance – said advocate Paweł Knap.

The indictment against the MEP of the European Coalition in August 2020, he was referred to the District Court in Gdańsk by the Lower Silesian Branch Office of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Wrocław. The prosecutor’s office accused her of hiding her income, which, according to investigators, she allegedly committed with her husband Paweł Adamowicz, the president of Gdańsk, who was murdered in January 2019.

According to investigators, Adamowicz had concealed almost 300,000 respectively in her tax returns for 2011-2012. PLN and 100 thousand PLN of income. In addition, the prosecutor’s office accused the MEP of not settling income from renting apartments as conducted in non-agricultural conditions business. According to investigators, the tax depletion amounted to almost 120,000. zloty.

In June 2022, the District Court in Gdańsk acquitted Magdalena Adamowicz of the charges. The substantiation indicated that no convincing evidence was presented to prove the origin of the undisclosed income and why it should be included in the PIT-37 return, and consequently on what basis the accused would violate the law.

The verdict is due on April 26.