Poland's president receives politicians sentenced to prison terms

Poland's President Andrzej Duda met with two convicted members of parliament of the former ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) on Tuesday just as police officers were supposed to take them to prison.

Former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński and his former State Secretary Maciej Wąsik posed side by side with the head of state at a reception in the Presidential Palace on Tuesday, according to images published by Duda's law firm on the platform X.

The police in Warsaw had previously confirmed that a court order had been received to take both politicians to prison.

Footage from broadcaster TVN24 showed police officers apparently searching in vain for the men in front of their homes.

The incident intensified the power struggle between the new pro-European centre-left government of Donald Tusk and the PiS, from whose ranks President Duda also comes.

In 2015, immediately after the PiS came to power, Duda had pardoned Kamiński and Wąsik in a controversial decision.

Both had previously been sentenced in the first instance to three years in prison for abuse of office.

The reason for the conviction was an affair uncovered in 2007, in which the anti-corruption agency, then headed by Kamiński , was said to have deliberately orchestrated a corruption case in order to discredit the then Agriculture Minister Andrzej Lepper. Kamiński and Wąsik appealed the verdict.

Last June, Poland's Supreme Court overturned Kamiński and Wąsik's pardons. Only people whose guilt has been established by a legally binding judgement can be pardoned, according to the reasons for the verdict.

Both had to face trial again. At the end of December, the Warsaw District Court sentenced them to two years in prison.