Poland asks UK to “accelerate extradition” of opposition-linked suspect

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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.

Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, says that he has asked the UK to speed up the extradition of Michał Kuczmierowski, a figure linked to the Polish political opposition who is accused of abusing his powers for financial gain while heading a state agency.

Kuczmierowski’s lawyer has criticised Sikorski’s actions, accusing the minister of “attempting to politically influence the decision of an independent court” in its decision on extraditing his client.

On Wednesday, Sikorski revealed that, during a meeting the previous day with his British counterpart Yvette Cooper, he had raised the case of Kuczmierowski, who is accused of abusing his powers as head of the Government Strategic Reserves Agency (RARS) when PiS was in office.

“The British side would like Polish criminals convicted in the UK to be able to serve part of their prison sentence in their homeland, and I have requested the acceleration of the extradition of the former head of RARS, accused of financial embezzlement during the PiS government,” wrote Sikorski.

In August last year, Polish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Kuczmierowski over suspected mismanagement of hundreds of millions of zloty by RARS under his leadership, including money intended to support Ukraine. If convicted, he could face up to ten years in prison.

However, Kuczmierowski, who is a close associate of former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, revealed that he was no longer in Poland and had come to London to “look for a job”. In September 2024 he was detained in London and extradition proceedings began.

Kuczmierowski has denied wrongdoing and argued that he would not receive a fair trial in Poland under the current government. Morawiecki last year said that the case against Kuczmierowski was an “act of political revenge by [current Prime Minister] Donald Tusk’s gang”.

The extradition proceedings against Kuczmierowski remain ongoing, with the next hearing scheduled at Westminster magistrates’ court in December.

However, Rzeczpospolita, a leading Polish daily, reported this week that there “is no chance a final ruling will be reached then” and that the situation could drag on “at least several [more] months, and most likely several years”.

Kuczmierowski’s lawyer, Adam Gomoła, told the newspaper that some of the delays have been caused by Polish prosecutors themselves, who he said want to make the case “a political spectacle and to bring Mr Kuczmierowski back to Poland in handcuffs, in view of the cameras”.

Gomoła also criticised Wednesday’s “scandalous” comments by Sikorski, who he said was “attempting to politically influence the decision of an independent court”.

Bartosz Lewandowski, a lawyer who has represented PiS-linked clients in other cases, likewise called Sikorski’s “methods not very in keeping with the rule of law”.

“A politician and member of the Polish government is asking a politician and member of the British government to put pressure on the court in order to expedite the extradition of a person wanted in an investigation being politically exploited by the rulers in Poland,” wrote Lewandowski.

Jakub Jaraczewski, a rule-of-law expert at Democracy Reporting International, told Notes from Poland that, “in general, diplomatic efforts to initiate or expedite extradition proceedings are a normal thing”.

“However, publicly expressing a desire for a foreign partner to expedite court proceedings is not a great look from the rule-of-law angle, as the UK is a country where the separation of powers is firm and the executive is expected not to pressure judges,” he added.

Since replacing PiS in office in December 2023, Poland’s current government has led efforts to hold former PiS officials to account for alleged abuse of power, corruption and other alleged crimes.

Earlier this year, Morawiecki himself was charged with abuse of power. Another former member of the PiS government, Marcin Romanowski, last year fled to Hungary after an arrest warrant was issued for him. He has been granted political asylum by the Hungarian government, preventing his extradition.

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: MFA/Flickr  (under CC BY-NC 4.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.