WARSAW. Polish police arrested former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński and his former deputy Maciej Wąsik who, following their conviction for abuse of power, had taken refuge for hours in President Andrzej Duda's palace in a dramatic escalation of the stalemate and tension between the new government, led by Donald Tusk and the previous one. The Polish media reported it. The two wanted men had taken refuge in the presidential palace since Tuesday morning at the invitation of the president.
“This is an unprecedented situation – commented Tusk – in which the convicts who must be taken by the police to a place of isolation choose another place of isolation, probably more comfortable (…) the presidential palace”. Duda had welcomed members of the former ruling party into the presidential palace as police went to their homes to arrest them. Warsaw police later said only that the arrest had taken place “in accordance with the court order.” Duda, linked to the outgoing conservative Law and Justice party, has made it clear that he will oppose Tusk's agenda. Duda's second and final term will last until mid-2025.
Kamiński has started a hunger strike, he said in a statement on Wednesday. “I declare that I regard my conviction … as an act of political revenge,” Kaminski said in the statement, read by his former deputy Blazej Pobozy at a news conference outside the prime minister's office. “As a political prisoner, I went on hunger strike from the first day of detention.” Police entered Poland's presidential palace to detain two of their former bosses on Tuesday, carrying out a court order to take the former Interior Minister and his deputy to prison and escalating a dispute between the head of state and the new government. After winning power in October, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former top EU official, vowed to reverse the policies of his predecessors, the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which faced accusations of subverting democracy during his eight years of government. The detention of the two lawmakers – Kaminski and his former deputy Maciej Wasik – was the latest salvo in a dispute that risks being one of many in a period of coexistence in which the government and the president belong to different political camps. On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the presidential palace at the behest of the PiS party, of which Kaminski and Wasik belong, and in front of a police station where they were detained.
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