Polish prosecutors can obtain arrest warrant for ex-chief of state strategic reserves agency

A Polish court has ordered the temporary pre-trial detention of the former head of the governmental strategic reserves agency (RARS), who is accused of exceeding his powers for financial gain.

The decision was requested by the national prosecutor’s office, which has so far failed to establish the man’s whereabouts, thus hampering the investigation. By ordering the temporary detention of the accused, who under Polish privacy law can only be named as Michał K., investigators will be able to chase him with an arrest warrant.

According to Polish media, the man is in hiding in northern Cyprus.

Politicians from the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was in power during the period in which the man was accused of abusing power, rejected the allegations against Michał K. – reportedly a close associate of former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki – calling the prosecutor’s actions “political revenge” from the new government.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the investigation concerns procurements organised by RARS between 23 February 2021 and 27 November 2023. Investigators believe these procurements were set up to benefit Michał K., among others.

RARS’s goal is to stockpile strategic food, medical and technical reserves, as well as fuel stocks, to be used in the event of war, public health emergencies or natural disasters.

Last month, prosecutors brought charges against two other people in the case, a director and a manager from the RARS purchasing office.

During the investigation, prosecutors also drafted charges against Michał K. and Paweł Sz., whom the Polish media identified as a businessmen running a self-described “patriotic clothing shop”.

However, they were unable to present the accused with charges, as “the whereabouts of the suspects are unknown, which prevented procedural steps being carried out with their participation”.

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“In view of the necessity to initiate a search for the suspects with arrest warrants, the prosecutor submitted motions to the District Court of Katowice-Wschód in Katowice to apply preventive measures in the form of temporary detention against them,” said the national prosecutor’s office in a statement published yesterday.

“The motions were justified by the existing risk of unlawfully obstructing the proceedings and the risk of fleeing and hiding,” the prosecutor’s office added. It also said that it might consider additional measures, including the European Arrest Warrant.

Investigators want to charge the men with participating in an organised criminal group, exceeding their powers and failing to fulfill their duties in order to gain financial benefit.

On Wednesday, the Katowice court granted the prosecutor’s motion in the case of Michał K.

Regarding Paweł Sz., it found that “the risk of obstruction in his case is not high enough to make it necessary to apply provisional arrest at this stage,” especially since the suspect has applied for release pending trial. The prosecutor has filed a complaint.

However, Bartosz Lewandowski, the lawyer representing Paweł Sz., stated in a social media post that “Paweł Sz. stayed in Poland, was in contact with law enforcement authorities, also appointed a representative”.

Lewandowski explained that the request for Paweł Sz.’s arrest “appeared unexpectedly when he went on vacation, which he had every right to do”.

In June, leading news website Onet published an investigation showing that companies set up by Paweł Sz., creator of the clothing brand Red is Bad – worn by leading Polish politicians – were allegedly awarded contracts for the purchase of masks and power generators for Ukraine without a tender process.

RARS allegedly signed contracts to purchase the generators, which were never delivered to Ukraine; instead, they were allegedly delivered to units of the Polish fire service during an election campaign last year, reported the website.

This morning Onet reported that Michał K. is in hiding in northern Cyprus. Although the website has not been able to establish the current whereabouts of Paweł Sz., its earlier investigation showed that he was planning to move to Spain.

The allegations against Michał K. have outraged PiS politicians. Former prime minister Morawiecki described the allegations as “political revenge from the gang” of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose government took over from PiS in December.

“I am fully convinced of Mr [Michał K.]’s integrity, which he will certainly prove in the trial,” said Morawiecki in a post on X.

“It is clear today that the reforms he has undertaken and the actions of the governmental strategic reserve agency are extremely displeasing to the current destructive government, destroying in its path everything and everyone who serves Poland well,” he added.

Morawiecki noted that Michał K. and the RARS employees’ “efficient decisions” allowed for the purchase of “essential, extremely difficult to access equipment, saving the health and lives of thousands of Poles”.

He also recalled that the former chief of RARS was awarded for his work with state orders by the presidents of Poland and Ukraine.

The justice minister, Adam Bodnar, who also serves as prosecutor general, expressed surprise at Morawiecki’s comment.

“This case was initiated before Donald Tusk’s government was formed. This case was conducted by the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau [CBA]…And what the prosecutor’s office is doing…is a continuation of all these findings from before [the new government took over],” he said this morning in an interview with broadcaster TVN24.

“No one denies that the pandemic was an exceptional situation, that it required special, unusual forms of involvement by the public authorities…but [one can’t] cheat on this occasion, drain public assets, which is what the allegations boil down to,” he added.

Meanwhile, Tusk, who called Michał K. “Morawiecki’s right hand, ventilator and [power] generator swindler”, assured the public that “wherever he is hiding, justice will get him”.

“We are counting on you, Mateusz, for your help in locating the whereabouts of Michał K.,” he wrote on X, addressing Morawiecki.

Main image credit: Krystian Maj via Kancelaria Premiera / flickr.com (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.