Europe

Polish officers raid home of ex-minister for justice amid investigation into alleged corruption

Seven charged as part of investigation into state-financed alleged slush fund

Poland's former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, whose home was raided as part of an investigation into the 'Justice Fund' run by his department. He has denied wrongdoing. Photograph: Attila Husejnow/Sopa Images/LightRocket via Get

Derek Scally in Berlin
Thu Mar 28 2024 - 16:52

Poland’s ruling coalition has stepped up its battle with the former government, raiding the home of the former minister for justice amid claims he oversaw a state-financed slush fund that financed spying on opponents and bankrolled the Catholic Church.

Seven people have been charged as part of the investigation into the so-called Justice Fund, set up in 2012 to assist victims of crime and rehabilitate criminals. A state audit found that only a third of funds were disbursed to victims of crime and 4 per cent on criminal rehabilitation, and about 60 per cent was used for other purposes.

The allegation with the most far-reaching political consequences is that the last government used 25 million zlotys (about €5.8 million) from the fund to purchase Pegasus spyware to spy on political opponents via their phones.

Media reports suggest the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party used the fund to buy voter support with constituency donations at election time. Any illegal use of public funding in the past, if proven, could have consequences for public funding of PiS now.

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“It would mean that PiS could lose its subsidy – almost 100 million zlotys [€23 million] over four years,” said Dariusz Jonski, an MP for the progressive Polish Initiative, a ruling coalition partner.

The highest-profile part of the investigation to date involved the raid of the home of former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro and other members of his conservative Sovereign Poland party.

Mr Ziobro, who is undergoing chemotherapy, has denied any wrongdoing and attacked the searches as a “spectacle of banditry and lawlessness”.

It was a remarkable reversal of fortunes for a politician who, in office, oversaw a controversial and far-reaching overhaul of the Polish justice system and ordered raids of opponents’ homes, often with television cameras in tow.

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Even while Mr Ziobro was still in office, Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK) warned in 2021 that theJustice Fund, under his ministry’s management, was “in violation of the basic principles of public spending” and had become a “corruption-generating mechanism”.

In some cases, justice ministry officials responsible for overseeing fund disbursement also acted for beneficiary organisations. In others, awards were made to unnamed foundations set up shortly before ad hoc tendering procedures.

Some of the spending flagged by the audit report has links to Catholic organisations.

Some 100 million zloty was transferred to a foundation run by a priest, reportedly a friend of the minister, to build a centre to assist victims of crime.

The project made headlines last year when the head of the construction firm building the centre was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement.

A Catholic university received a subsidy to develop a new programme counteracting defamation of Poland, but the NIK state audit report found that “no such model has been created” and that other projects in the programme were “not related to the topic”. Another programme was financed to analyse how Christians are presented in the Polish media, internet memes and fantasy novels.

Poland’s bishops’ conference, under fire to address the growing list of allegations, has criticised what it sees as “grossly unfair media attacks”.

In addition to the seven people charged to date, prosecutors may strip some MPs of their immunity for a parliamentary investigation into the fund.

On Thursday PiS parliamentary party leader Mariusz Blaszczak said this week’s raids “threatened freedom”.

Nearly a decade after PiS took office, promising to end corruption among a self-serving liberal elite, Poland’s minister for the interior, Marcin Kierwinski, said the raids were proof that that “there is no longer a ‘caste with impunity’” operating in Poland.

Derek Scally

Derek Scally

Derek Scally is an Irish Times journalist based in Berlin

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