CBA agents have detained former PiS MEP Ryszard Czarnecki – informed the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and Administration, Jacek Dobrzyński. “The proceedings conducted jointly with the CBA and the branch office of the National Prosecutor's Office in Katowice concern Collegium Humanum” – he informed. The politician's wife was detained in the same case. The former MEP was led out of the prosecutor's office by a CBA officer at around 10:30 p.m.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Interior and Administration and the coordinator of special services, Jacek Dobrzyński, informed that Richard Czarnecki By CBA took place on Wednesday “around 4 p.m. at the Warsaw airport.” “At the same time, his wife Emilia H. was detained in Warsaw,” he said in a statement.
As he added, “the proceedings conducted jointly with the CBA with the branch office of the National Prosecutor's Office in Katowice concern the Collegium Humanum”. On Wednesday evening, Czarnecki was already in Katowice. At around 10:30 p.m. the activities ended and Czarnecki was led out by an officer.
– Political theatre. The authorities are making games because they can't do anything else – he told journalists standing in front of the building, then took the back seat in the car that drove away from the prosecutor's office.
Ryszard Czarnecki led out of the prosecutor's officeTVN24
On TVN24 Dobrzyński said that “the case is quite strong and developing”. – It is about selling university diplomas, there are already a dozen or so people arrested all over the country and this is a continuation – he noted.
Spokesperson of the Minister of Interior and Administration on the details of Ryszard Czarnecki's arrest TVN24
Przemysław Czarnecki, Ryszard Czarnecki's son, commented on the case. “In connection with today's arrest of my father – I would ask the journalistic community first of all to refrain from issuing hasty judgments and to report the facts honestly and objectively. At the moment, they are such that my father – a public figure, not hiding, who responds to every call from the relevant authorities, was arrested on his way to an international conference,” he wrote.
Czarnecki's and his wife's connections with Collegium Humanum
As tvn24.pl journalist Robert Zieliński explained on air, “this is a different case than the investigation that is ongoing at the prosecutor's office in Zamość and concerns the suspicion of defrauding hundreds of thousands of zlotys on so-called mileage allowances.”
– As I understand it, after the prosecutor's office decided to also arrest the wife, it is almost certain that the employment of Ryszard Czarnecki's wife at the Collegium Humanum university was a form of bribery for the MP himself. In reality, she did not work, she was paid money and it was actually remuneration for certain services for the Collegium Humanum university, which, as an MEP, Ryszard Czarnecki regularly fulfilled – reported Zieliński.
The tvn24.pl journalist reported that he tried to obtain answers from both the Collegium Humanum and the MEP's wife. – She did not answer the question for what work she received this remuneration from the Collegium Humanum. As I understand it, the prosecutor's office has already obtained solid circumstantial evidence or rather even proof that this employment was fictitious, that in reality she did not perform any work, and that this was how the remuneration was paid through his wife to Ryszard Czarnecki himself – he said.
– MEP Ryszard Czarnecki was very involved in promoting this very young university, which achieved a huge success, of course up to a certain point. He also promoted it outside Poland, helped to establish contacts with universities in Uzbekistanon Belarusin the countries of the former USSR, from where many students came to the Collegium Humanum – he said.
– The prosecutor's office suspects that these students did not actually spend a single day studying. All that mattered was that they transferred money to the university's accounts, and then the university immediately sent them their diplomas of higher education or MBA courses – he added.
Łukasz Karusta on the Collegium Humanum scandalTVN24
The Collegium Humanum Affair
In March 2023, along with the detention of two people by the CBA on suspicion of accepting material and personal benefits, the Collegium Humanum scandal broke out regarding the trading of diplomas by this non-public university.
The university was founded in 2018 in Warsaw. According to media reports, it offered crash courses that allowed one to earn an MBA diploma. Such diplomas allow one to apply for positions on supervisory boards of state-owned companies.
The credibility of documents issued by Collegium Humanum was supposed to be ensured by foreign universities, but it turned out that they did not have the authority to conduct MBA studies. Among the graduates of Collegium Humanum were politicians, presidents and members of the boards of state-owned companies, officers of special services and military commanders.
Main image source: TVN24