Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Warsaw Voice- Resignations over Surveillance Leak Scandal

The Warsaw Voice » Politics » June 11, 2015

Several top Polish officials resign over eavesdropping scandal investigation leak

June 11, 2015

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PM Ewa Kopacz

Polish PM Ewa Kopacz accepted resignations of several cabinet officials, including Treasury Minister Wlodzimierz Karpinski, Health Minister Bartosz Arlukowicz as well as deputy Treasury Minister Rafal Baniak, PM Ewa Kopacz told a news briefing Wednesday night.

The government reshuffle follows a leak of documentation on investigation on a wiretapping scandal that has been sending shock waves through the Polish political scene since mid-2014.

Other officials that filed resignations include Sports Minister Andrzej Biernat, deputy Environment Minister Stanislaw Gawlowski, deputy Economy Minister Tomasz Tomczykiewicz, PM chief advisor and former Finance Mininster Jacek Rostowski.

PM chancellery head Jacek Cichocki resigned form the role of the coordinator of the special services. He will continue to head the chancellery.

Also, Parliamentary Speaker Radoslaw Sikorski declared his intention to step down, Kopacz said.

Most of those officials were either recorded or mentioned on recordings made by a group of waiters in restaurants frequently visited by the ruling party Civic Platform (PO) officials. Cichocki, who is coordinator of special services, filed his resignation as he felt responsible for failures of those services, Kopacz said. No replacements were named.

Kopacz also criticized performance of prosecutors in the investigation on the wiretapping scandal, saying that the most recent leak was "the only visible effect" of the investigation. She said she would not accept an annual report by General Prosecutor Andrzej Seremet and suggested somebody else should be heading prosecution.

Seremet was in the lower house on Wednesday to present information on the unlawful publication of files from the tape scandal investigation. According to Seremet, the prosecutor running the case is not responsible for the leak as, under the law, he had to make the files available to all parties involved in the case.

Polish prosecutors have evidence who was the likely source of copies of documentation concerning investigation in the wiretap scandal, prosecutors' office spokesman Przemyslaw Nowak told reporters. Making the copies was legal, only publishing them was not, the spokesman said.