Warsaw prosecutors extend probe into irregularities at anti-corruption bureau

The Warsaw prosecutor’s office announced plans to continue probing alleged irregularities regarding investigations into former-President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his wife Jolanta, former Civic Platform MP Beata Sawicka, and celebrity Weronika Marczuk, Polish news portal TVN24 wrote March 19.

Renata Mazur, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, confirmed that a request for an extension of the investigation has already been filed.

“The extension results from the need to question additional individuals,” she said, according to TVN24.

At the beginning the investigation focused on the alleged disclosure of state secrets and proprietary information, unlawful use of secret information, and its publication in a book by Tomasz Kaczmarek – former CBA officer, and current MP of the Law and Justice (PiS) party.

The investigation gathered pace as other issues came to light. These regarded exceeding of mandates by the CBA operatives during the Marczuk, Sawicka and Kwasniewski investigation.

The probe into Weronika Marczuk was one of the CBA’s most spectacular failures. Marchuk, former-wife of the Polish actor Cezary Pazura, was suspected of requesting and taking a bribe for mediation during the privatization of Polish publisher Wydawnictwo Naukowo-Techniczne. The case was discontinued in 2011. At the same time the prosecutor’s office expressed its worries regarding the legality of the CBA’s actions during the investigation.

In 2010 CBA Head Pawel Wojtunik reported the possibility of an abuse of power, and illegality of the CBA’s operational activities, with regards to the purchase of a luxury villa in Kazimierz Dolny in 2009.

Tomasz Kaczmarek, who wanted to prove that the Kwasniewski couple have a hidden source of income, led the operation. He acquired the property, which was worth PLN 1.6 mln, for double the price, with the aim of tracking down the money to the former president and his wife.

The operation was halted in the final stages as the mediator in the transaction took the money from a case, which was equipped with a GPS device.

In 2010 the Katowice prosecutor’s office discontinued the case.