The scandal surrounding the Justice Fund. PiS MPs accuse investigators of falsifying evidence
Maria Kurowska did not prepare an e-mail regarding consultations with her regarding grant agreements from the Justice Fund; this email could have been prepared by prosecutors investigating the FS, says MP Michał Wójcik. He announced that he would file a report in this matter with the Warsaw prosecutor's office.
Onet revealed the e-mails
The Onet portal wrote on Wednesday that the current PiS MP from Podkarpacie, Maria Kurowska, in the past associated with the now defunct Sovereign Poland, allegedly sought to influence the financial decisions of the Justice Fund in 2020, when the head of the Ministry of Justice was SP leader Zbigniew Ziobro.
According to Onet's publication, in July 2020, Kurowska was to send Tomasz Mraz to the then director of the Justice Fund department at the Ministry of Justice. a message asking him not to sign any contracts with municipalities in two counties – located in her constituency – without consulting her. The portal reported that in other emails the MP indicated specific communes and institutions and suggested amountsand after Ziobro's visit to Rzeszów in July 2020, she asked Mraz about the procedure for the “promised” motor pumps and indicated three Volunteer Fire Department units.
Wójcik stands up for Kurowska
Referring to the described e-mail from July 2020, Wójcik said at Friday's press conference that Kurowska never prepared such an e-mail. Kurowska herself stated that she wrote a total of five e-mails to Mraz “during the greatest crisis” in her constituency and addressed, among others, asking for additional equipment for hospitals in Jasło, Rzeszów and Krosno during the COVID-19 pandemic or to donate money to the needs of local volunteer fire brigades.
The MP said that her correspondence with Mraz ends on July 7, 2020 (Onet's article indicates that the message regarding contracts with municipalities was to be sent on July 24). Kurowska said that it was a very difficult time for her, her husband died on July 16. She added that she started any e-mail correspondence only on July 28 and assured that she never deleted the e-mails.
“Email prepared by prosecutors”
According to Wójcik and Kurowska, prosecutors from the Investigative Team No. 2 established in the National Prosecutor's Office, which is dealing with the Justice Fund case, “most likely, most likely, prepared the electronic correspondence and gave it the appearance of authenticity and truthfulness.”
Wójcik – who is currently a PiS MP and in the past was also a politician of Sovereign Poland and a deputy minister in the Ministry of Justice led by Ziobro – said that due to the fact that “false accusations that violated the dignity and personal rights” of MP Kurowska had appeared in the public space, they had jointly prepared a notification on the suspicion of a crime committed by prosecutors from the PK team and would submit it to the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw.
The National Prosecutor's Office has not yet commented on Friday's announcement by PiS MPs.
“Grants awarded on a political basis”
The spokesman for the National Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor Przemysław Nowak, asked on Thursday at a press conference about the publication of the Onet portal, said that MP Kurowska “has 100% no charges in the investigation related to the Justice Fund, and 90% she has not been interrogated in any capacity.” He noted that one of the threads of the investigation is the issue of non-competitive subsidies from the SF.
Proc. Nowak said that in this thread there is also a suspicion that “these subsidies were awarded on a political basis, especially given the intensity around election campaigns, and not necessarily on a substantive basis.” He noted that it is not denied that “the money was actually intended for a good purpose in the form of volunteer fire brigades, co-financing of rural women's associations and hospitals.” But – added the PK spokesman – “the key and motivation was not to help these individuals, but to gain electoral support, and this is no longer the motivation that was provided for by law and this is not the key this money should be used for.”
Kurowska denies it
On Wednesday evening, in a statement on Facebook, Kurowska declared that she “never took a penny for herself” and was attacked for helping firefighters and hospitals from Podkarpacie.” The MP emphasized that she acted for her constituency and responded to the needs of hospitals “in accordance with the statutory duties of an MP.”
Investigative Team No. 2, which deals with the Justice Fund case at the National Prosecutor's Office, was established in February last year. The investigation concerns the improper awarding of multi-million grants from the Justice Fund. It is multi-threaded and takes place, among others: regarding the abuse of powers and failure to fulfill duties in recent years by the Minister of Justice and ministry officials who were responsible for money from the Fund. One of the suspects in this investigation is the former director of the Justice Fund Department at the Ministry of Justice, Tomasz Mraz, whose explanations were supported by, among others, the recordings constitute – in the opinion of the prosecutor's office – important evidence in the proceedings.
So far, several indictments have been submitted to the courts regarding various threads of the investigation relating to the Justice Fund, including against former Deputy Minister of Justice Michał Woś (former SP politician, currently PiS MP) for transferring PLN 25 million from this Fund to the CBA for the purchase of the Pegasus system, despite – as the PK points out – the ban on financing the CBA from sources other than the state budget. (PAP)
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