Poland: Former govt. ministers on hunger strike after arrest

Until very recently, Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik were two of the most powerful men in Poland. As interior minister in Mateusz Morawiecki's national-conservative cabinet from 2019 to 2023, Kaminski was in charge of the national police and intelligence services. Wasik, his deputy, was his right-hand man in the ministry.

Since the change of government in Poland in December, both politicians have been lawmakers for the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is now the largest opposition party in the Sejm, Poland's lower house of parliament.

But on Tuesday evening, Warsaw police officers entered the presidential palace and arrested their former boss and his deputy. According to the internet platform Onet, the two men were led away in handcuffs.

By Wednesday evening, it was reported that both men had gone on a hunger strike.

First arrest attempt failed

A court had previously issued orders for the politicians to be arrested and delivered to prison. In December, Kaminski and Wasik were each sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of power in 2007, when Kaminski was in charge of the anti-corruption agency CBA.

A first attempt to arrest the two politicians on Tuesday morning failed. When officers arrived at their respective homes, Kaminski and Wasik were already on their way to a meeting with President Andrzej Duda.

Poland's head of state, who hails from the same political camp as the two men and has never made any bones about his close ties to the right-wing PiS, had invited them to a ceremony at the palace, where he made two officials who had worked closely with them his advisers and praised their patriotism.

In a photo of the five men released on Tuesday, there is no sign of tension or the drama that would follow. Everyone seems completely at ease.

Defiant statement outside the palace

After the ceremony, Kaminski and Wasik gave a statement to the press outside the palace. Kaminski said that a "dark dictatorship" was emerging in Poland and spoke of a "serious national crisis." He went on to say that Poland was moving toward a "totalitarian state."

"Justice will win, evil will lose," they declared before going back inside the presidential palace. When Duda left the building briefly for a meeting elsewhere, officers entered the palace and arrested the pair.

An 'unprecedented scandal'

"This is the symbolic end of PiS's lawlessness," said liberal lawmaker Dariusz Jonski. "There are no sacred cows left now."

Later that evening, several PiS lawmakers gathered outside the police station where the two men had been detained. According to PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, their arrests were "revenge" and an "unprecedented scandal." He took the opportunity to repeat his accusations that the country's new government is being "controlled from abroad" and is set on "destroying the Polish state."

President Duda 'deeply shocked'

In a first statement on Wednesday, Duda said he was "deeply shocked" by what had happened. He referred to Kaminski and Wasik as "crystal-clear honest people" who had fought corruption. "I will not rest until Mariusz Kaminski and his associates are free," he added.

In view of the protests that have been planned, he appealed to his compatriots to remain calm and to demonstrate peacefully.

Grazyna Ignaczak-Bandych, the head of the president's chancellery, had previously posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the president intended to inform heads of state around the world that the executive is breaking Polish law and disregarding the constitution.

On Wednesday, Kaminski went on a hunger strike in prison. In a statement, Kaminski, who described himself as a "political prisoner," said he regarded his conviction "as an act of political revenge."

Deputy Justice Minister Maria Ejchart responded, saying "I want to say clearly that if a politician is in prison, it does not mean that he is a political prisoner."

Later that evening, Wasik's wife told Republika TV that her husband had joined the hunger strike.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacted to the president's attempts to offer refuge to the two men in his palace by quoting from the Polish Criminal Code: "Anyone who obstructs or prevents criminal proceedings by helping an offender to evade responsibility, and in particular anyone who hides the offender (...) is liable to imprisonment for between three months and five years," he read out.

"I just want the president to be aware of what his political friends have tricked him into," said Tusk. "They are the ones setting a trap for him, not me."

Trial, pardon, retrial

The current situation is the result of a long and complicated legal case.

In 2015, Kaminski and Wasik were sentenced in the first instance to three years in prison. Just a few months later — before the judgment became legally binding — Duda pardoned the PiS politicians immediately after he came to power. This allowed them to assume posts in what was then the new PiS government.

Poland's Supreme Court declared last June that the pardon had been unlawful and ordered a retrial. In December, they were sentenced again, this time to two years in prison, and lost their seats in parliament — a decision they have refused to accept.

"Only physical force can stop me taking part in the Sejm session," Kaminski said in a radio interview on Monday.

To prevent an incident in parliament, Szymon Holownia, speaker of the Sejm, postponed the session that had been scheduled for Wednesday until next week.

Protest planned outside parliament

Duda could resolve the issue by pardoning Kaminski and Wasik again. This time, the pardon would be lawful as the trial is now over and the sentence final and absolute.

But the president isn't expected to do that because it would be tantamount to an admission that he had wrongfully pardoned them the first time round.

Before their arrest, Kaminski and Wasik called on "all decent and normal" Poles to take part in a demonstration outside the parliament on Thursday.

The "Protest of the free Poles" was originally intended to focus on recent changes in the public media sector. Now, however, the release of the two politicians is likely to be at the fore.

Adapted from the German by Aingeal Flanagan