Polish presidential aide indicted over 2014 election support signatures

Polish prosecutors say they have indicted presidential aide Adam Andruszkiewicz on charges of orchestrating the forgery of voter support signatures in the country’s 2014 local elections.

Adam AndruszkiewiczPAP/Albert Zawada

The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in the eastern city of Lublin said on Tuesday it had filed an indictment against Andruszkiewicz and two other people with the District Court in Białystok, in Poland’s northeast.

Andruszkiewicz serves as deputy head of President Karol Nawrocki’s office.

Prosecutors accuse him of directing the falsification of support lists for National Movement candidates for the regional assembly in Poland’s Podlaskie province.

They say that between September 15 and October 6, 2014, in Białystok, he oversaw the preparation of forged signatures while serving as a leader of the All-Polish Youth nationalist organization.

The case concerns support lists required to register candidates for local elections. 

Prosecutors say Andruszkiewicz also unlawfully processed personal data contained on those lists and abused the rules for preparing the documents.

In a statement, Beata Syk-Jankowska, spokeswoman for the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, said the charges are supported by the “consistent, logical and coherent” testimony of one of the co-defendants, named only as Paweł P., as well as witness statements and Andruszkiewicz’s leadership role in gathering signatures and supervising the lists.

She added that handwriting experts indicated that he may have written several signatures himself, though many of the initial marks on the lists could not be used for reliable comparison.

Andruszkiewicz has denied the allegations. He said the case is politically motivated.

In a post on X, he asked media outlets to use his full name and show his full image. The usual practice in Polish media is to use only the initial of a suspect’s surname, and to grey out facial features.

He had earlier argued that after a 12-year investigation and numerous handwriting analyses, no accusation of personally forging signatures had been brought against him.

He said the new charge rests on the claim that he allegedly ordered others to do it.

Two other defendants, identified as Wojciech N., a 40-year-old economist, and Paweł P., a 39-year-old electrician, face charges including unlawful processing of personal data, use of an illegally created data set and forging signatures on support lists.

Both have admitted the acts attributed to them. Prosecutors have asked the court to convict them without a full trial.

All three defendants face up to five years in prison.

The investigation began in November 2014 after a notification from the Provincial Election Commission in Białystok.

It was first handled by the Białystok-Południe District Prosecutor’s Office, then by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Białystok, and from 2019 by prosecutors in Lublin. In October 2024, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin took over the case again.

Prosecutors said they reviewed 1,761 signatures on the election lists, of which 501 could be compared with handwriting samples from possible suspects.

During the investigation, 1,596 witnesses were questioned and 59 expert opinions on handwriting were commissioned.

Nine people were given suspect status, with the cases of six separated into other proceedings.

Andruszkiewicz is a right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) politician from northeastern Poland. He previously served as a deputy digital affairs minister in the United Right government and was earlier associated with All-Polish Youth and the National Movement.

In August last year, he became deputy head of the Polish President’s Office.

(rt/gs)

Source: IAR, PAP

Radio Poland