The public prosecutor's office is to check financing sources of ex-president Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s Amicus Europe Foundation, says Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro.“After Sunday’s statements of, among others, Jan Rokita (Civic Platform) I decided that the public prosecutor's office will commence explanatory proceedings on Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s foundation,” Ziobro said.
The Minister refers to Sunday’s meeting in Radio Zet where both opposition and coalition members suggested that it was illegal that Kwaśniewski’s foundation took contributions from Ukrainian oligarch, Viktor Pinchuk.
“We have to deal with an illegal act of a criminal character which should be prosecuted. In Poland, financing political activities from foreign sources is prosecuted. And the activities of Kwaśniewski’s foundation are without any doubt political, not cultural; and because of that, its financing from foreign sources constitutes a punishable act,” Rokita said.
“I have nothing to hide,” Kwasniewski retorts. “I know that this is not about the foundation. This is about me,” he added.
The prosecutor’s decision to start the investigation Kwaśniewski called “political and unwise”.
Deputy Speaker of Polish Parliament Bronisław Komorowski (Civic Platform) did not venture legal evaluation of former president’s foundation financing. Still, he believes that it is good that prosecutors decided to clarify the situation.
Victor Pinchuk is a son-in-law of former president Viktor Kuchma. In 2006 Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s foundation received from the Ukrainian nearly 1,000,000 zlotys. More money (some 1,200,000 zlotys) is to be donated in 2007 and in 2008.
A part of the contribution was assigned for the creation of the kwasniewskialeksander.pl website as well as a report on political key decisions to be taken by Ukrainian authorities in 2006-2008, in context of possible joining the EU by Ukraine.
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