The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw today discontinued the investigation into “the police intervention at the apartment of editor Tomasz Sakiewicz,” investigators reported. The investigation was discontinued even though the prosecutor pointed out in many places to irregularities both during the intervention at the apartment itself and in the preparation of the report.
In mid-May 2026, a scandalous situation occurred involving police entering the apartment-office of TV Republika CEO Tomasz Sakiewicz, as well as handcuffing and removing his assistant from the premises, all because of a false report about an alleged suicide attempt by a child.
This took place at a time of intensified attacks on journalists from independent media and opposition politicians, including through the use of false alarms and notifications.
Police officers offered vague explanations regarding, among other things, the lack of an identification badge on one of the officers, the failure to publish body-camera footage, and similar issues. According to Tomasz Sakiewicz, the officers did not identify themselves after entering the premises and then used handcuffs on the assistant to the president of TV Republika. According to accounts from those involved in the incident, the police also searched the apartment.
After conducting preliminary checks, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw opened an investigation on 2 June 2026 into the matter on suspicion of police officers exceeding their powers, namely, unauthorized entry and the unlawful detention of Tomasz Sakiewicz’s assistant, as well as certifying falsehoods by officers in the detention report.
Today, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw decided to discontinue the investigation.
The prosecutor’s office pointed to numerous steps taken in the investigation, including interviews and an analysis of official documentation.
The intervention was improper, but the investigation was discontinued
After analyzing the prosecutor’s office statement, it is not difficult to see that the investigation was discontinued even though serious irregularities in the officers’ intervention were found.
“After conducting the analysis, the prosecutor concluded that no legal provision directly grants police officers the right to enter someone else’s apartment without the consent of the authorized person in a situation involving a report of an immediate threat to human life and health,” the prosecutor’s office assessed. At the same time, it noted that “in such a case, however, their violation of another person’s domestic peace is not unlawful conduct, because they are acting in a state of necessity under Article 26 § 1 of the Criminal Code, that is, in a situation where, in order to avert an immediate danger to a superior legal interest, namely human life and health, they sacrifice a legal interest of clearly lesser value, namely the right to the inviolability of the home.”
It was added that the officers also did not commit an unlawful act if they acted while “under an excusable mistaken belief” that there was a threat.
“The findings of the investigation led the prosecutor to conclude that the police officers who entered Tomasz Sakiewicz’s apartment acted under such an excusable mistaken belief that there was a minor in the apartment experiencing a suicidal crisis and requiring immediate assistance,”
the prosecutor’s office statement reads.
At the same time, the prosecutor’s office found that the officers had carried out the intervention improperly.
“The prosecutor further established that the intervention was conducted improperly by the police officers and listed their individual errors in the reasoning for the discontinuation; however, these did not meet the statutory elements of a prohibited act constituting a criminal offense and should be considered only in the context of possible disciplinary misconduct,”
the statement said.
Investigators concluded that handcuffing Tomasz Sakiewicz’s assistant in the circumstances “fell within the officer’s official powers and did not in itself constitute an abuse of authority.”
“The officer did not, however, comply with the obligation arising from the provisions of the Act on Direct Coercive Measures and Firearms, namely, he did not call on the injured party to behave in accordance with the law and did not warn her that this particular direct coercive measure would be used against her. In the prosecutor’s view, this omission was not of such gravity as to fall within the statutory elements of the prohibited act under Article 231 § 1 of the Criminal Code, especially since the use of the direct coercive measure itself was permissible and lawful, as well as proportionate and not excessively onerous,”
the statement continued.
This is how the prosecutor’s office summed up the entire matter of handcuffing the assistant:
“In the prosecutor’s assessment, the detention itself was lawful and justified, but clearly improper.”
Irregularities in the report
How did the prosecutor’s office assess the issue of the report prepared by the police officers? Here, too, there was no shortage of critical remarks.
“As regards the circumstances of the preparation of the detention report, the prosecutor pointed out as another irregularity that the police officers prepared it only at the police station and without the participation of A.S. [Tomasz Sakiewicz’s assistant]. One of the functions of such a report is to provide safeguards for the detained person, that is, to ensure that the report reflects the actual course of the actions taken and that the detained person has the opportunity to submit any objections to the contents of the report itself, which is of significant importance from the point of view of later judicial review of the lawfulness of the detention if such proceedings are initiated before a court by an authorized person. Since the injured party was released while still at the scene of the intervention, the police officers should have prepared the report there with her participation, or organized the technical steps related to preparing the report in such a way as to enable her participation later, shortly after her release, before the report was completed,”
the prosecutor’s office said.
It continued:
“However, the annotations made in the report in the sections intended for statements by the detained person, namely: ‘No statements’ and ‘does not raise objections or make statements,’ were ultimately found by the prosecutor not to constitute certification of falsehoods. Their literal wording corresponded to the truth. Since A.S. did not participate in the preparation of the report, she could not, in fact, make any statements or objections, and none were made. The report did not record anywhere that she was absent when it was prepared, but neither did it record the opposite untrue circumstance, namely that she participated in the preparation of the report, which would have cast the above annotations in a different light.”
The prosecutor stated that the decision to discontinue the investigation runs to 38 pages. The parties have the right to appeal the prosecutor’s decision to a court.