The Warsaw District Prosecutor\u2019s Office has rejected a motion filed by Roman Giertych, counsel for Austrian businessman Gerald Birgfellner, to remove prosecutor Ma\u0142gorzata Szeroczy\u0144ska from the ongoing “Two Towers” investigation.<\/p>\n
The “Two Towers” investigation centers on abandoned plans to construct two high-rise buildings on a Warsaw plot owned by Srebrna, a company linked to the Law and Justice (PiS) party. Warsaw prosecutors launched the inquiry in February 2023, alleging that businessman Gerald Birgfellner was misled into an unfavorable property deal.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, PiS leader Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski testified as a witness for nine hours. Prosecutor Ma\u0142gorzata Szeroczy\u0144ska denied a request from Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s legal team to block Roman Giertych from participating in the hearing.<\/p>\n
Following the hearing, Giertych filed a motion to exclude prosecutor Szeroczy\u0144ska from the case, citing her decision to strike over 80 percent of his questions during Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s testimony. Giertych argued that this practice, which he described as unprecedented, effectively stripped his client of the right to representation and signaled a lack of impartiality.<\/p>\n
Giertych further claimed the prosecutor’s conduct was rooted in a previous legal dispute where a court had previously criticized her procedural errors. However, the District Prosecutor\u2019s Office officially confirmed on Monday that the motion to remove the lead prosecutor has been rejected.<\/p>\n
Kaczy\u0144ski has publicly questioned Giertych\u2019s role, arguing that because Giertych is an opposition politician, his participation conflicts with legal standards. In 2019, under the previous administration, prosecutors initially refused to open an investigation into the project, citing a lack of documented evidence regarding Birgfellner\u2019s expenses.<\/p>\n
This decision was later challenged by the applicant and maintained by a district court in 2020. The case was subsequently included in a 2023 National Prosecutor\u2019s Office audit, which identified serious procedural flaws and recommended that the investigation be reopened.<\/p>\n
The scandal originated in 2019 when “Gazeta Wyborcza” released recordings of conversations between Kaczy\u0144ski and Birgfellner regarding the Srebrna development. The reports also included allegations that the PiS leader pressured the businessman to pay 50,000 PLN to a priest on the board of the foundation that owns Srebrna.<\/p>\n
Kaczy\u0144ski has consistently denied wrongdoing, stating that the project remained in the planning stage and that Birgfellner\u2019s demands for payment were undocumented and unlawful. The PiS leader has also previously labeled the prosecution\u2019s investigation as politically motivated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Warsaw District Prosecutor\u2019s Office has rejected a motion filed by Roman Giertych, counsel for Austrian businessman Gerald Birgfellner, to remove prosecutor Ma\u0142gorzata Szeroczy\u0144ska from the ongoing “Two Towers” investigation. Stalled Case and Legal Dispute The “Two Towers” investigation centers on abandoned plans to construct two high-rise buildings on a Warsaw plot owned by Srebrna, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}