Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar, who also serves as justice minister, has submitted a request to the Sejm, the lower chamber of parliament, for it to strip opposition MP Micha艂 Dworczyk of immunity. Bodnar wants to charge Dworczyk with obstructing the prosecution's investigation into the so-called email scandal.
Micha艂 Dworczyk served as former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki's chief of staff from 2017 to 2023.
The District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw said in a statement that it "has gathered evidence justifying a sufficient suspicion of Micha艂 Dworczyk's involvement in the offense of obstructing the criminal proceedings of the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw".
"The obstruction allegedly involved granting access to his private email inbox to designated individuals and instructing them to permanently delete email messages sent from that inbox within specified time frames," the prosecution stated.
The investigators, we read, also "requested Micha艂 Dworczyk to provide a backup copy of his private email inbox".
"It was established that the contents of the inbox had been partially deleted in a manner that prevented the recovery of deleted messages. As a result of such actions, data essential for establishing the circumstances of the hacking attack, which is the subject of the investigation, was destroyed," the announcement informed.
Dworczyk: absurd accusations
Dworczyk addressed the matter in a Friday post on social media.
"No evidence in the case was destroyed - this accusation is completely fabricated. What's more, a binary copy of the contents of my inbox was promptly handed over to the ABW after the hacking attack. During this period, the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw had not even initiated proceedings yet," Dworczyk wrote on the X platform on Friday.
He added that "the absurd accusations formulated by Minister A. Bodnar are pure political revenge and an incompetent attempt to cover up the dramatic and embarrassing situation with Polish soldiers".
Dworczyk stated that he consideres the request to lift his immunity as "another political attack just before the elections".
He also accused the ruling coalition of grasping "at every, even the most grotesque, way to divert attention from its disastrous security policy".
Email scandal under PiS government
Since mid-2021, email correspondence allegedly originating from Dworczyk's private mailbox has been published on anonymous channels and websites on the internet.
The United Right government questioned the authenticity of these emails but did not provide an example of false information. On the other hand, the authenticity of several of them was publicly confirmed by individuals involved in the correspondence.
Under the PiS government, the Government Information Centre consistently stated that "Poland experienced a cyber and disinformation attack originating from the territory of the Russian Federation," and therefore, "the Chancellery of the Prime Minister will not comment on the content of the materials".
殴r贸d艂o:聽TVN24 News in English, PAP
殴r贸d艂o zdj臋cia g艂贸wnego:聽PAP/Marcin Obara