Will Sławomir Nowak still face trial over the charges in the so-called “Polish thread” of his corruption case? The Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office has reportedly filed an appeal against the decision to discontinue the proceedings and sent the relevant documents to the Mokotów court yesterday, according to unofficial findings by Niezalezna.pl. The document was allegedly signed by the head of the Warsaw prosecutor’s office, Prosecutor Michał Mistygacz.
Sławomir Nowak served as Minister of Transport in Donald Tusk’s second government. Later, in 2016, he became head of Ukraine’s state road agency. In 2021, prosecutors charged him with more than a dozen offenses, mainly corruption-related – some dating back to his time as a cabinet minister and Tusk’s chief of staff.
Nowak’s trial began last year but was divided into several separate proceedings. The so-called “Polish thread,” concerning alleged bribes accepted in exchange for lucrative positions in state-owned companies, was handled by the Warsaw-Mokotów District Court. However, two weeks ago, the case was dismissed – at a preliminary hearing.
What caused particular outrage was that prosecutor Małgorzata Ceregra-Dmoch, present at the Mokotów hearing, not only supported the defendants’ motion for dismissal but even declared that the prosecution would not appeal the court’s decision.
A major scandal erupted soon after, prompting the prosecution to reverse course. Two days ago, Niezalezna.pl reported that the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office released a statement saying that after analyzing the court’s written justification, it was recommending that the lower-level prosecutors file an appeal. According to the regional office, the court had conducted an “unauthorized substantive assessment” of the case.
-As the statement explained, in the prosecutors’ view, “by discontinuing the proceedings at a preliminary hearing – before the start of the main trial on the grounds of an obvious lack of factual basis for the charges, the court exceeded the scope of preliminary control and conducted an impermissible substantive evaluation of the evidence gathered in the case.”
When asked today about the current status of the decision, Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Piotr Skiba replied:
“A statement responding to these questions will be published this afternoon.”
However, Niezalezna.pl has learned unofficially that the appeal was already sent to the court yesterday – the last possible day before the dismissal would have become final.
The appeal, according to sources, was personally signed by the head of the office, Prosecutor Michał Mistygacz.