President’s deputy chief of staff charged in signature forgery case

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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.

President Karol Nawrocki’s deputy chief of staff, Adam Andruszkiewicz, has been charged by prosecutors with ordering the falsification of documents. If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison.

Andruszkiewicz denies the accusations, calling them a “trumped-up fairy tale” and “act of political revenge” by the government against the office of Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition.

On Wednesday, prosecutors announced that they have brought charges against Andruszkiewicz in a case that dates back to 2014, when he was the leader of All-Polish Youth (Młodzież Wszechpolska), a prominent far-right group, in the Podlaskie province.

The accusations relate to claims that signatures of support for the nomination of local election candidates standing on behalf of the National Movement (Ruch Narodowy), another nationalist group aligned with All-Polish Youth, in Podlaskie were forged.

Now, eleven and a half years after the investigation began, prosecutors have concluded that Andruszkiewicz was responsible for “directing the forgery by other persons of documents”.

They say one of the witnesses in the case gave testimony to this fact, which was then corroborated by other evidence, including further witness statements and handwriting analysis.

If found guilty of forgery, Andruszkiewicz would be imprisoned for up to five years. He also faces charges of violating the electoral process, punishable by up to three years in prison, and unlawfully processing personal data, which carries a potential two-year jail term.

Prosecutors say that, when he was summoned today to hear the charges, Andruszkiewicz did not plead guilty. The politician himself also took to social media to proclaim his innocence and suggest that the prosecution against him is politically motivated.

“This charge is a completely trumped-up fairy tale used as a political weapon,” he wrote, promising to “debunk this false narrative”.

Similarly, last week, after prosecutors had summoned him to appear today, Andruszkiewicz called their actions “an obvious act of political revenge” and part of “a broader plan of constant attacks by the current ruling party on the chancellery of the president”.

Since Nawrocki came to power last year, he has regularly clashed with the more liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

The president himself has not yet commented on today’s announcement. But he did come to the defence of his deputy chief of staff last week, after Andruszkiewicz had been summoned by prosecutors.

“Twelve years of investigation without evidence; clear and unanimous opinions from handwriting experts pointing to no connection of Adam Andruszkiewicz to the case – and suddenly, a revelation,” wrote the president sarcastically on social media.

“The prosecutor’s office acts slowly and selectively in this matter, but strangely enough, always in line with the expectations of the ‘boss’,” he added.

Nawrocki’s mention of the “boss” is likely to be a reference either to Waldemar Żurek, the justice minister and prosecutor general, or Tusk.

Since coming to power in December 2023, Tusk’s government has made holding to account figures associated with the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party one of its priorities. However, PiS accuses the authorities of weaponising the legal system against them for political reasons.

After leaving All-Polish Youth, Andruszkiewicz was associated with a handful of other small right-wing parties before joining PiS in 2019 and becoming a deputy minister in the then PiS-led government.

Last year, he was a senior figure in the presidential election campaign of Nawrocki, whose candidacy was supported by PiS. When Nawrocki became president in August, he appointed Andruszkiewicz as his deputy chief of staff.

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: Grzegorz Jakubowski/KPRP

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.