Polish far-right activist charged over making threats to PM
Prosecutors charged the far-right anti-immigration activist Robert Bakiewicz with making public calls to cause bodily harm and take the life of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw has announced.
Spokesman for the prosecution, Mateusz Martyniuk, said on Monday that Bakiewicz was charged with three crimes, which apart from making threats to Tusk, included calls for causing harm to his associates.
On October 11 last year, Bakiewicz addressed a Warsaw rally held by the main opposition party, the socially conservative Law and Justice (PiS). During the event, he publicly criticised the prime minister and his circle for Poland's immigration policy, which according to Bakiewicz, favoured the interests of Germany and migrants themselves.
According to the prosecution, Bakiewicz called to "forcibly remove" the prime minister, a constitutional body of the Republic of Poland, using figures of speech which were clearly associated with killing and mass extermination. In Polish law, the crime is punishable with up to three years of imprisonment.
The second charge concerns degrading the prime minister in public by calling him a "traitor", "coward", and a "German minion", for which Bakiewicz could be penalised with up to two years of imprisonment or restriction of liberty.
Prosecutors also charged Bakiewicz with using ethnic- and race-related hate speech directed at German nationals and immigrants, a crime punishable with imprisonment up to three years.
Martyniuk said that Bakiewicz did not confess to the crimes and refused to provide explanations. He did, however, speak to his supporters gathered at the prosecutor's office building, calling the charges "absurd" and infringing upon his right to free speech.
"In a state governed by the rule of law, one bears responsibility for threats and aggression," the government's spokesman, Adam Szlapka, wrote in a post on X on Monday, commenting on the charges presented to Bakiewicz. (PAP)
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