Marek Falenta has been detained, the interior minister Joachim Brudziński announced on Friday. He also extended his congratulations to the police officers that took part in finding and arrest of the businessman.
"As I said, Polish police is always on top of things. Marek Falenta has been detained. My compliments to the officers involved in this operation", the interior minister Joachim Brudziński wrote on Twitter on Friday evening.
Earlier on Friday, the District Court in Warsaw issued the European Arrest Warrant for Falenta, on the request of the police.
According to the Main Police Headquarters (KGP), Falenta has been detained near Valencia by both Polish and Spanish officers.
"It was us who have determined his whereabouts. At the moment, a procedure has been launched that is aimed at extraditing him in the hands of the Polish justice system," said the spokesman for the KGP, Inspector Mariusz Ciarka.
On the 31st of January, the Warsaw Court of Appeals decided that Falenta must serve his punishment of 2,5 years in prison. The judge rejected complaints filed by Falenta's lawyers regarding postponement of his punishment, because of poor state of his health. In March, the District Court in Warsaw issued an arrest warrant for the businessman.
In 2016, Marek Falenta was sentenced for 2,5 years in prison in connection to the so-called wiretapping affair. The sentence become legally binding in December 2017. Falenta's lawyers have filed a request for cassation in the Supreme Court and they're awainting president Duda's decision regarding pardon request put forward last year.
The recordings published by "Wprost" weekly in 2014 led to a crisis in Donald Tusk's cabinet. The said wiretap recordings were taken between July 2013 and June 2014, in restaurants in Warsaw. Marek Falenta ordered the recordings of prominent figures from political and business circles, as well as public officers. Among the people recorded were the then interior minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, infrastructure and development minister Elżbieta Bieńkowska, head of central bank Marek Belka and anti-corruption bureau's chief Paweł Wojtunik.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP