Polish justice minister requests lifting of deputy opposition leader's legal immunity

Poland's justice minister and prosecutor general, Adam Bodnar, has requested that parliament lift the legal immunity of Antoni Macierewicz, a deputy leader of the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Prosecutors are seeking to bring charges against Macierewicz for alleged crimes he committed while head of a controversial commission established when PiS was in power with the aim or re-investigating the 2010 Smolensk air disaster that killed then President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others.

In a statement, Bodnar's office noted that Macierewicz is being investigated over 21 alleged criminal acts relating to his time heading the commission, including disclosing classified information to unauthorized persons, abuse of powers, falsification of documents, and obstructing criminal proceedings.

While those investigations are still ongoing, one has already led to a “sufficiently justified suspicion that Antoni Macierewicz committed an offense” by disclosing classified information while head of the commission.

At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Bodnar's due Anna Adamiak, said that the “disclosure of information concerned materials collected by the Smolensk subcommission…marked with the clauses 'top secret', 'confidential' and 'restricted'”, reports broadcaster TVN.

The two crimes prosecutors wish to charge him with – both of which relate to unauthorized disclosure of information – carry prison sentences of up to three and five years respectively.

However, because Macierewicz is a member of parliament, he enjoys immunity from prosecution unless parliament votes – by a simple majority – to lift that immunity. The government's majority in parliament has already stripped immunity from a number of PiS MPs , including party leader Jarosław Kaczyński

Macierewicz has long promoted the claim that the 2010 Smolensk crash was not a tragic accident – ​​as official Russian and Polish investigations found at the time – but was caused deliberately in an effort to kill Lech Kaczyński.

He and Jarosław Kaczyński – Lech's identical twin brother – have suggested that Russia was behind the crash and that the then Polish government, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, was either complicit or subsequently helped to cover it up.

When PiS came to power in 2015, it established a commission within the defense ministry to re-investigate the crash. Maciereiwcz, who was then serving as defense minister, headed up the commission.

However, despite Macierewicz and Kaczyński repeatedly claiming over the following eight years that the commission had obtained, and would soon reveal, proof that the crash was deliberately caused, no conclusive evidence was ever produced by it.

In 2023, a new government – ​​again led by Tusk – replaced PiS in power. It immediately closed down the commission , saying that it had been spreading “lies” about Smolensk.

Last year, a report by the defense ministry into the activities of the commission claimed it had wasted tens of millions of zlotys in public funds. As a result, the ministry filed notifications of over 40 suspected crimes, including by Macierewicz and his successor as defense minister under the PiS government, Mariusz Błaszczak.

Macierewicz has not yet commented on Bodnar's request to strip him of immunity. However, last year he accused the government of shutting down the commission and pursuing action against him in order to “protect Putin and…Tusk”.

Main image credit: Maciek Jazwiecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl