The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin discontinued the investigation against the founder of the Open Dialogue Foundation engaged in supporting defenders of democracy. For five years, Bartosz Kramek was prosecuted by a PiS prosecutor, Ziobro’s nominee, Jerzy Ziarkiewicz.
Jerzy Ziarkiewicz is the discredited head of the Lublin Regional Prosecutor’s Office, who for years blocked investigations into Law and Justice politicians and vigorously prosecuted representatives of the PiS opposition. Ziarkiewicz was dismissed by the Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar at the end of January this year, after an article in Wyborcza in which we revealed that the head of the Prosecutor’s Office kept case files in his office garage. Ziarkiewicz was personally bringing them to Lublin from all over the region. There were so many case files that there was no longer enough room in the garage to park the official car of the prosecutor’s office.
Free Courts, protests in defence of the constitution, Women’s strike
Investigators under Ziarkiewicz had been prosecuting Bartosz Kramek since 2018. Kramek is an opposition activist and one of the founders of the Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF), which is engaged in supporting defenders of democracy in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Led by his wife Lyudmyla Kozlovska, the Foundation has a strong influence on public opinion in Europe.
In the past, the Open Dialogue Foundation provided, among other things, assistance to Ukraine (providing protective equipment and helmets), which was at that time fighting against Russian aggression in Donbas and Crimea. Since 2017, following the beginning of the Law and Justice (PiS) government, Kramek and Kozlovska had been involved in the fight for civil liberties in Poland. They took part in the Free Courts rallies, protests in defence of the constitution and the Women’s Strike.
Kramek was placed on the Law and Justice blacklist when he publicly called for a “Polish Majdan”. In 2018, Kozlovska was expelled from Poland at the request of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) allegedly posing a ‘threat to state security’. She appealed the decision, and the administrative courts have already sided with her three times. Finally, in January this year, the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw ordered the Office for Foreigners to remove the President of the Open Dialogue Foundation from the list of undesirable foreigners in Poland.
Charges in cases from 10 years ago
Investigators from Lublin finally brought charges against Bartosz Kramek in 2021, allegedly relating to a case from ten years ago. He was arrested in June in a Warsaw hotel on the order of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin. The day before, Kramek had flown in from Brussels, where he was staying at the time.
Following his detention at the request of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, Bartosz Kramek was taken into custody on the basis of a court decision. However, three weeks later, the Open Dialogue Foundation activist was released. This was decided by the court, which accepted PLN 300,000 bail and rejected the prosecution’s objection, imposing on Kramek a punishment in the form of a ban on leaving the country and police supervision.
Investigators presented him with allegations of making false statements for the purpose of financial gain. The point was that Kramek, as head of Silk Road, allegedly issued VAT invoices for unspecified consultancy services between 2012 and 2016.
According to investigators from Lublin, its contractors were supposed to include “exclusively entities from so-called tax havens”. The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin claims that “the Silk Road company did not provide services to these contractors, nor did it have any economic relations with them”. According to investigators, the case involves 46 VAT invoices issued to 11 foreign entrepreneurs for a total amount of approximately PLN 5.3 million.
According to investigators, the funds raised by Silk Road were to be transferred to the Open Dialogue Foundation.
Kramek’s release was preceded by a letter to the Law and Justice government signed by Lech Wałęsa
The ODF leadership treated the detention of Bartosz Kramek in 2021 as another act of political persecution of the Foundation by institutions controlled by the Law and Justice Party.
“For criticising those in power, Open Dialogue has been in the crosshairs of the authorities since 2017. Since 2018, ABW has been ‘investigating’ our finances. There are also numerous legal proceedings against us. So far, all of them have been resolved in our favour. This is how it will be now as well. We are operating legally. We will not be intimidated,” wrote the ODF management shortly after Kramek’s arrest.
Kramek’s release was preceded by a letter to the Law and Justice (PiS) government signed by Lech Wałęsa and dozens of others, some from abroad. They demanded Kramek’s release and wrote that under the guise of charges of an economic nature, a political crackdown was being carried out on an activist involved in actions in defence of democracy in Poland.
“That’s a crushing defeat for prosecutor Jerzy Ziarkiewicz and Zbigniew Ziobro, who personally ordered tightening the preventive measures imposed on me. Today, they were rejected as completely unjustified, disproportionate – because they are incompatible with the facts and were imposed in the absence of any new circumstances,” Bartosz Kramek wrote in 2021 on Facebook.
Prosecution: Evidence provided no grounds for indictment
The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin discontinued the investigation against Bartosz Kramek on Friday, 6 December.
“Evidence gathered after the presentation of charges as part of the verification of Bartosz K.’s line of defence makes it plausible the version of events presented by him that the services indicated in the above-described invoices issued by him in 2012–2015 could have actually been performed,” reads the note of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin.
And further: “(…) collected evidence did not provide the necessary grounds for prosecution, which resulted in the termination of the investigation”.
“After more than seven years, this is very bitter justice. I hope that the prosecutor’s office will keep up the momentum and discontinue further politically motivated and scandalous proceedings against, among others, entrepreneurs such as Piotr Osiecki, Przemysław Krych, Leszek Czarnecki, Tomasz Misiak or Rafał Markiewicz, Maciej Bodnar and Michał Lubiński,” Bartosz Kramek told Wyborcza today.
And he concluded, “I am indebted to my wife, my parents, my excellent defence lawyers and friends who supported us at critical moments, including immediately after my arrest. This investigation was conducted in bad faith at the political behest of the top leadership of the country at the time. It is high time that those responsible for abuses in the prosecutor’s office and secret services be brought to full justice. This group is headed by Zbigniew Ziobro and Bogdan Święczkowski, as well as Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik.”
Bartosz Kramek has repeatedly announced that he will demand compensation from the investigators for the several weeks’ detention.
Source: wyborcza.pl
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