Romanowski’s Pre-trial Detention Upheld: Prosecutors Dismiss Defense Request

Prosecutors have rejected a defense motion to partially dismiss the investigation and lift the pre-trial detention of former Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski, maintaining that all legal grounds for the measure remain valid.

Defense Motion and the Ziobro Precedent

This concerns a request recently submitted to the National Prosecutor’s Office by the defense of the former deputy minister for the partial dismissal of the investigation and the revocation of pre-trial detention. In early August, RMF FM reported that defense attorneys cited a district court decision from July of this year upholding the detention of the main suspect in this case, former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who is currently staying in the United States. The district court indicated at the time that the probability of Ziobro committing 7 of the 26 acts charged against him was lower than the others.

The defense counsel for the former deputy minister, attorney Bartosz Lewandowski, told RMF FM that for some of these acts, the gathered evidence does not indicate a high probability of their commission, and these charges overlap with those leveled against Romanowski.

Prosecutor’s Office Rejects Defense Arguments

On Tuesday, August 11, RMF FM reported that the prosecution did not grant the defense motion. This information was confirmed by National Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Prosecutor Przemysław Nowak, who stated that the decision in this matter is dated August 6.

The National Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson noted that the prosecutor did not share the arguments of Romanowski’s defense, which were based on the decision concerning Ziobro. Nowak emphasized that, in the prosecutor’s opinion, the gathered evidentiary material still points to a high probability that Marcin Romanowski committed the acts attributed to him.

Grounds for Pre-trial Detention Still Valid

He added that in the justification, the prosecutor also indicated that the preventive measure is applied to a suspect in the case as a whole, rather than separately for each charge. He also emphasized, as reported by the spokesperson for the National Prosecutor’s Office, that the so-called specific prerequisites for applying pre-trial detention remain valid in his view.

Prosecutor Nowak recalled that these prerequisites include the risk of tampering with evidence, a severe penalty facing the suspect, and above all, the fact of his flight and hiding from law enforcement authorities abroad for over a year and a half.

Political Asylum in Hungary and Investigation Background

Romanowski obtained political asylum in Hungary. He is a suspect in the Justice Fund investigation, with prosecutors charging him with participation in an organized criminal group and rigging competitions for funds from this foundation, among other offenses. Because authorities could not locate the politician following the court’s December 9, 2024 decision to apply detention, an arrest warrant was issued, followed by a European Arrest Warrant.

It then emerged that Romanowski had obtained political asylum in Hungary, and his current whereabouts remain unknown. In early August, Adam Bodnar suggested that the fugitive politician might be under the protection of Opus Dei.

Justice Fund Charges and Details

The National Prosecutor’s Office investigation into the Justice Fund has been ongoing since February 2024, encompassing over a dozen threads, including abuse of power and failure to fulfill duties by the Minister of Justice and ministry officials responsible for fund monies.

In the case of Romanowski, who served as the Deputy Minister of Justice supervising the Justice Fund from 2019 to 2023, prosecutors charged him in the fall of 2024 with committing 11 offenses, including participation in an organized criminal group and rigging competitions for funds from the foundation.

These offenses allegedly involved indicating to subordinate employees the entities that should win competitions for Justice Fund grants. The politician was also said to have ordered the correction of faulty bids prior to their submission and allowed grants to be awarded to entities that failed to meet formal and substantive requirements. The charges also concern the misappropriation of a total of over PLN 107 million and the attempted misappropriation of over PLN 58 million.