After a six-hour session, the Warsaw court has provisionally arrested Sławomir Nowak and his partner Jacek P. The former PO politician will spend three months in custody. The former commander of „Grom”, Dariusz Z., can be released pending trial if he pays a million zloty bail. Nowak’s defender announces that he will file a complaint against the court decision.

The Prosecutor’s Office was sure that the evidence obtained by the Polish and Ukrainian services would be sufficient to place Nowak under arrest, who is facing even 15 years in prison for corruption scams in Ukraine and Poland. Today, the court decided that allowing Nowak to be released from prison could lead to a potential fraud, or even the possibility of the former minister of infrastructure escaping from the country. The prosecutor’s office charged him with running a criminal group and accepting financial benefits amounting to 1.3 million zlotys.

Former Minister of Transport and former head of the Ukrainian road agency Ukrawtodor Sławomir Nowak was detained on Monday on suspicion of corruption, running an organised crime group and money laundering. Moreover, Dariusz Z. was detained in Warsaw and businessman Jacek P. in Gdańsk. On Tuesday Nowak was brought to the prosecutor’s office for questioning and he heard the charges. The former politician provided an explanation. As the prosecutor Mirosława Chyr reported, the explanations were also presented by Dariusz Z. Whereas Jacek P. refused to submit them.

Sławomir Nowak heard the charge of running an organised criminal group benefiting from corruption in the period from October 2016 to September 2019. A former politician is suspected of demanding and accepting financial and personal benefits in exchange for awarding contracts for road construction and renovation in Ukraine to private entities, as well as money laundering. As a result of these crimes, he was to receive PLN 1.3 million.

The investigation in this case is conducted simultaneously by the CBA and the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, as well as the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in Kiev and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. The case is being investigated separately in Poland and Ukraine, and evidence is being exchanged and actions are being coordinated by a team of investigators appointed specifically for this purpose.

Tłum. K.J.