In an update on a case from last July, the prosecutor’s office arrested Sławomir Nowak, a high-ranking politician of the Civic Platform party and chairman of the Ukrainian road authority. Ukraine accuses Nowak of financial mismanagement. If found guilty he faces from three to eight years in prison.
Sławomir Nowak has had a rapid political career. Born in Gdańsk, he has rose through the ranks of the local Civic Platform party, forming close ties to party chairman Donald Tusk who, from 2007 to 2014, served as the prime minister of Poland. At that time Nowak became minister of transportation, construction and maritime trade, keeping tabs on Poland’s multi-billion-zloty road building program.
In 2013 the prosecutor general of Poland found irregularities in Nowak’s financial statements, but two years later a court in Warsaw dismissed the case.
In 2016 Sławomir Nowak acquired Ukrainian citizenship and became chairman of the Ukrainian Road Authority. He lost favor after the Ukranian elections in 2019 when new president Volodymyr Zelenski singled out Nowak as a symbol of corruption.
The investigation is lead by Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors, in August 2020 Nowak was arrested, and recently the Ukrainian prosecutor accused him of serious mismanagement and refusal to comply with a court order. If found guilty he will spend from three to eight years in Ukrainian prison. Polish investigators have added corruption charges in Poland.