On Tuesday, a meeting of the Sejm Administration and Internal Affairs Committee was held concerning the deaths of three men following police interventions in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship: the deaths of 29-year-old Łukasz Łągiewka (Wrocław), 25-year-old Dmytro Nikiforenko (Wrocław) and 34-year-old Bartosz Sokołowski (Lubin).
We present the moving statement by attorney Wojciech Kasprzyk from Bolesławiec, who represents Bartosz Sokołowski’s family.
It is difficult to discuss this today, because I had a number of questions for the commander. Admittedly, at the previous committee meeting, when I asked a question, I received no answer; on the contrary, I had the impression that I was being insulted, and later, by the National Police Headquarters press officer, actually accused and threatened with disciplinary proceedings for allegedly lying. Nevertheless, all the claims I made have been confirmed, and now the commander’s words “I’m sorry” to the family, to me and to us, the representatives, are entirely justified. I ask: why have those police officers still not been charged? The fact that the men were suffocated is recorded in the autopsy report; the fact that there were bruises on the throat is also proven by the autopsy. It was carried out by professionals. At first, we deliberately planned to conduct the autopsy in Russia, but decided against it because they would say, “Putin.” We decided to do it in Germany, where there are the greatest professionals. No, because they would say, “Merkel.” We did it in the Czech Republic. Now there is Turów; I am curious what we will hear.
We have a Czech autopsy, carried out by an outstanding professor from Liberec. Tomorrow we will convene a press conference to present it. We hope that after this autopsy many people will open their eyes and see what happened in Lubin. Because in Lubin there is carelessness; those police officers are still working and carrying on as normal.
And my question to the commander today was this—except that he is not here: What family connections are there within the police? For example, involving one of the police officers. What family connections exist within the police in Lubin and Polkowice? Everything is close-knit. No one has investigated it, but I received signals that it should be checked; as a representative, however, I did not have that opportunity. Today we already have much more knowledge, and tomorrow we will also share information about family connections within the Police.
It turned out that this may be why they have not been suspended—perhaps someone is protecting them. These are bold words on my part, but I have not been wrong even once in this case.
I hope I will see this through to the end and that the perpetrators of these acts will be convicted.
What concerns us? Police training concerns us. We have already verified this thoroughly. During one interrogation—I will not say which one; I am handling three cases—police officers referred to laws that have not been in force since 2015. Basic laws, ladies and gentlemen. It is a scandal that the police are not being trained today and that the simplest issues, namely statutory ones, are not being covered. How is a police officer supposed to know what the Executive Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure or the Code of Petty Offences is?
You would be holding your heads in your hands at what police officers say. They simply are not trained and lack substantive knowledge. I recently heard that police training lasts 64 days and is conducted online. Do you want such police officers—trained online—out on the streets, defending you against criminals?! I cannot imagine it.
If that is true, I am of course asking the question, because I have heard these “latest hits,” as people colloquially call them.
There are many questions, ladies and gentlemen. Why did the files disappear? Why, after I filed a notification with the prosecutor’s office, did not just one interrogation of the key witness suddenly turn up, but… two? How is it even possible that the interrogations disappeared and ended up—as I learned from a press conference convened by Mr Ciarka—in Wrocław? And how did they end up in Wrocław, if Lubin was handling the case? How did the interrogation of the paramedic end up in Wrocław? The paramedic whose footage from the ambulance was recently published, showing that they took away the proverbial corpse. How is it even possible that the interrogation record of the person who recorded everything on her phone disappeared? The records of the two most important people disappeared. The interrogation records of the police officers disappeared, ladies and gentlemen. We do not know where they are. We know that the Internal Affairs Bureau has notes. The prosecutor’s office does not have these notes, does not know what happened to them and does not possess them.
There are a great many questions here. When it comes to a state governed by the rule of law, he is an academic lecturer. How am I supposed to answer such questions from my students today, when they ask me about various things in class, given that I meet with them? What have we brought about? We have brought about a situation in which, last December, the police had 44 percent public support. I suspect that after these three cases—or even five; I do not know whether it will even retain 10% public trust. Moreover, I checked this: in the 1990s, the Polish police and the State Fire Service competed for the highest level of public trust in this country. Can you imagine that, ladies and gentlemen? I cannot today. Thank you.
A video recording of the press conference is below.