Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Warsaw Voice-Former Anticorruption chief sent to jail for power abuse

The Warsaw Voice » Law » March 31, 2015

Former anticorruption bureau chief sent to jail for power abuse

March 31, 2015

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CBA head Mariusz Kaminski and his deputy Maciej Wasik

Former head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau Mariusz Kaminski was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and a ten-year ban on taking public functions for overstepping his powers in the investigation of the so-called ‘land scandal’, a Warsaw court decided on Monday.

Kaminski was the head of the Polish anticorruption bureau CBA in the years 2007-2009. The court case referred to one of the first secret operations of CBA approved by Kaminski in 2007 - an investigation over corruption in the Farming Ministry. According to the court, CBA had no reliable information on infringing the law, but started the operation anyway.

CBA head and three other officers were also found guilty of forging documents, as well as of illegal phone tapping.

The ‘land scandal’ took place in Poland in summer 2007, during the law and Justice (PiS), Samoobrona and LPR government. CBA prepared a provocation in which they asked to change the status of a piece of land close to Mragowo in the Mazuria region from agricultural to residential in return for a bribe. It was meant to disgrace the then Farming Minister and deputy PM Andrzej Lepper.

The scandal resulted in Lepper’s dismissal and the collapse of the governing coalition in in July 2007.