2024-12-02 14:10 update: 2024-12-02, 21:16
Photo PAP/Wojtek Jargilo
Karol Nawrocki, a presidential candidate backed by the main opposition party, the socially-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), has faced backlash after the publication of a damning report describing his links to criminal and Nazi circles.
On November 23, PiS officially endorsed Nawrocki as their presidential candidate in the 2025 election. Although running as an independent contender, Nawrocki is widely regarded as a PiS candidate.
The party lost power late last year after eight years in government and is hoping to retain the highest office in the country, currently occupied by Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally.
But Nawrocki's campaign hit a speed bump just days after it started. After announcing that he would run for president, Nawrocki failed to resign from his public post of the head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), drawing criticism from veterans of Polish anti-communist opposition.
To add fuel to the fire, the Onet.pl news and entertainment website on Sunday published fragments of an anonymous report describing Nawrocki's past and his alleged links to criminal figures and Nazi movement members.
In reaction to this, two European parliamentarians, Michal Szczerba and Dariusz Jonski, both representing the Civic Coalition, Poland's main party in the pro-European coalition government, announced they would launch an official inspection of Nawrocki's past in their capacity as parliamentary deputies.
"The case is extremely serious because it concerns the first citizen of the Republic of Poland, a candidate who wants to fight for this highest office," Szczerba said.
The MEPs said they would carry out the inspection, among other places, in the Museum of the Second World War in the coastal city of Gdansk, where Nawrocki was the director in 2017-2021.
Szczerba and Jonski also said they would "within hours" ask the prosecutors to investigate the operation of the criminal groups mentioned in the report.
According to Onet.pl, Nawrocki continues to maintain relations with his dubious friends from the past, including boxers and club bouncers, "despite the fact that some of them are regular gangsters, pimps and football hooligans."
Onet.pl also claimed that the report had been prepared at the request of "someone from inside PiS, who wanted to harm Nawrocki."
"In the narrative on Nawrocki's entanglements, the main characters would be Olgierd L. - a gangster convicted of, among other things, pimping and brutal beatings, one of the most famous Polish neo-Nazis of his time and currently a member of biker gangs; and Grzegorz H., a (neo - PAP) Nazi, a member of the illegal organisation Blood and Honour (the original German phrase 'Blut und Ehre' was the motto of the WW2 Nazi German youth organisation Hitlerjugend - PAP), who has contacts with the most active European neo-Nazis. L. and H., as well as Nawrocki's colleagues from the boxing ring, are linked to the Bad Company biker gang, the core of which are repeat offenders," Onet.pl wrote, quoting the report.
Years ago, Nawrocki was a boxer and a club bouncer.
"At least 200-300 people in their interlocking social circles know that Nawrocki is misrepresenting the truth, denying uncomfortable acquaintances or reducing them to 'casual photos' or meetings," Onet.pl added.
PiS spokesman Rafal Bochenek wrote on Sunday that "(Prime Minister Donald - PAP) Tusk and his media have launched a brutal attack on the civic candidate for the Polish President, Karol Nawrocki."
Nawrocki called the report "serious manipulation" that was a mix of "truths, half-truths and utter lies." (PAP)
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