Polish opposition MP detained over alleged financial crimes

Mar 7, 2025 | Energy & Climate, Law

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

An MP from Poland’s main opposition party has been detained by anticorruption agents and will be charged by prosecutors with six crimes relating to the alleged misspending of millions of zloty in state funds.

If found guilty, Dariusz Matecki (pictured above left) of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party could face up to ten years in prison. However, he claims to be the innocent victim of a political attack by the government.

Last week, Adam Bodnar, the justice minister and prosecutor general, submitted a request to parliament to lift Matecki’s legal immunity so that he could be detained to face charges. This week, shortly before parliament was due to vote on that request, Matecki declared that he would voluntarily waive his immunity.

He also arrived in parliament wearing handcuffs as part of a protest, during which he stood at the rostrum to declare himself the victim of a political attack by the government.

“They silence the opposition, control the media, and use courts as weapons—just like they tried to do with President Trump, even trying to kill him,” declared Matecki in a message that he directed to, among others, Elon Musk.

Matecki is accused by prosecutors of a range of crimes relating to the alleged misuse of millions of zloty in public funds during the time that PiS was in power.

Some of them pertain to alleged laundering of money from a fund set up by the justice ministry to prevent crime and support victims, but which various figures in PiS – including former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro – have been accused of using to channel money to political allies.

Specifically, Matecki is accused of wrongdoing relating to grants of almost 17 million zloty (€4 million) given by the Justice Fund to two organisations with which he was associated. Prosecutors say he did this “in order to achieve financial and personal benefits”.

 

Additionally, Matecki is accused of undertaking “fictitious employment” at the state forestry agency, where he was allegedly given a job and salary but failed to perform work and falsified documents relating to it.

“The prohibited acts – for which there is a reasonable suspicion that they were committed by MP Dariusz Matecki – are characterised by a high degree of social harmfulness and are punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years,” says Bodnar’s spokeswoman, Anna Adamiak.

On Thursday, parliament voted to strip Matecki of immunity, despite his earlier claim that he would voluntarily give it up. On Friday morning, officers from Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) took the politician into detention, with the scenes broadcast live by conservative TV station Republika.

Matecki’s lawyer claimed that his client had been detained while already on his way to appear at the National Prosecutor’s Office.

A spokesman for the National Prosecutor’s Office, Przemysław Nowak, confirmed that Matecki had been detained and would be charged later today. He added that a search of premises being rented by the politician would be undertaken today.

Nowak said that prosecutors had requested Matecki be held in pretrial detention “due to a justified fear [that he would undertake] unlawful obstruction of the proceedings”, reports broadcaster TVN.

News of Matecki’s detention was condemned by some colleagues in PiS. Michał Wójcik, a former government minister, called it “pure authoritarianism”.

However, Monika Wielichowska, an MP from the ruling coalition and a deputy speaker of parliament, welcomed the arrest as showing that “no one is above the law”. She said she “believes he [Matecki] deserves it like few others do”.

Last year, a former deputy justice minister, Marcin Romanowski, was also stripped of immunity to face charges relating to misuse of the Justice Fund. However, before he could be detained he fled to Hungary, where he was granted political asylum.

On Thursday, parliament also stripped immunity from PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński in order to face a defamation case, and from deputy PiS leader Mariusz Błaszczak to face criminal charges for publishing the content of classified military plans while defence minister.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Służba Więzenna (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

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