Mariusz Kamiński, the former Polish Interior Minister, and his former deputy Maciej Wąsik were invited by President Andrzej Duda to attend a ceremony where he appointed his advisers. They were arrested when Duda left for a meeting with Svetlana Tihanovskaya, the leader of the Joint Transitional Cabinet of Belarus. Duda was supposed to talk to Kamiński and Wąsik when he came back, according to RMF24.
The Polish presidential office condemned the incident as a violation of the dignity of the Polish state and of those who were pardoned by the president of the Republic of Poland.
Kamiński and his deputy were convicted of corruption and land fraud in 2015 and sentenced to three years in prison. Duda then pardoned them. Kamiński later became the Interior Minister again, and in 2023 he and his deputy were elected to the Sejm from the Law and Justice party.
However, in June 2023, the court annulled Duda’s pardon and ordered a retrial. At the end of the year, the court gave Kamiński and Wąsik two-year prison terms. On January 8, they were declared wanted by the police. After their arrest, around 300 people protested outside the presidential palace.
Kamiński and Wąsik have been in jail since yesterday. Kamiński started a hunger strike to express his outrage:
«I regard my conviction for fighting corruption and the unlawful stripping of my parliamentary immunity as an act of political vengeance,» Kamiński said in a statement.
