Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of Poland’s primary opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), declared on Thursday that Mariusz Kaminski, the former interior minister, was subjected to torture during his imprisonment. Kaminski, along with his deputy, Maciej Wasik, had been serving a two-year sentence for abuse of power since December 2023 but were released thanks to President Andrzej Duda.
Kaczynski’s thesis centered on the claim that Kaminski was forcefully fed through a nasal tube during a hunger strike, a procedure he described as painful and unnecessary. This practice, according to Kaczynski, constituted torture. The PiS leader went as far as comparing the Warsaw district court, which convicted Kaminski and Wasik, to Stalinist tribunals and suggested that the judges involved should face trial themselves.
Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik, both officials in the previous government, had commenced a hunger strike at the onset of their detention in early January. The situation escalated when Kaminski’s son, Kacper, revealed on social media platform X that his father had been force-fed after two weeks of refusing food.
Kaczynski, in his criticism, pointed fingers at the upper echelons of the current government, implicating Prime Minister Donald Tusk in the decision to force-feed Kaminski. He announced intentions to bring charges against the Polish government to a European Union institution, asserting that the decision to force-feed was a direct order from the top and constituted an act of torture.
The opposition leader highlighted that Kaminski suffered from a nasal condition, which made the force-feeding particularly agonizing, and emphasized that the procedure was superfluous, especially given Kaminski’s impending release.
The incident has sparked a political controversy. Kaczynski demands severe legal repercussions for those responsible for the act of torture. The allegations have yet to be independently verified