“The prosecutor’s office has issued an arrest warrant for the mayor of Suwałki municipality, Zbigniew M., suspected of accepting financial benefits from a businessman. The prosecutor’s office has not yet been able to determine the whereabouts of the local official, the national prosecutor’s office told PAP. Meanwhile, the local government official claimed on local radio that he had nothing to blame and was abroad for treatment. “I have not received any summons for questioning. It is all the more incomprehensible that the police are looking for me,” he said.
The investigation is being conducted by the Podlasie Section of the Organized Crime and Corruption Department of the National Prosecutor’s Office; it concerns the “granting of financial benefits to persons exercising public functions and holding management positions in entities carrying out business activity and accepting such benefits for these persons from persons managing an established economic entity”.
Mayor of Sokółka in custody
So far, the prosecutor’s office has filed charges against 16 people, including the mayor of Sokółka, who was detained. Eventually, after paying bail, she was released from prison.
The National Prosecution Office informed PAP that it had previously intended to charge Zbigniew M. with accepting material benefits of significant value, but he failed to appear before the Public Prosecution Office in May this year.
During the proceedings, the prosecutor decided to arrest and take Zbigniew M. to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to carry out procedural activities with his participation, including announcing the decision to bring charges and interrogating him as a suspect.
– said Przemysław Nowak, spokesman for the National Prosecutor’s Office.
Zbigniew M. could not be detained
He added that it was not possible to detain Zbigniew M. or determine his whereabouts in the country.
Zbigniew M. did not contact the Public Prosecutor’s Office and did not justify his absence. Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth running of the case, the prosecutor applied to the Białystok District Court to impose provisional arrest on Zbigniew M.
– Nowak informed.
The Białystok District Court decided to impose pre-trial detention on the Speaker of the House, and the Prosecutor’s Office launched a search for him with an arrest warrant.
In July, in an interview with local radio station Radio 5, the local official said that when he was not working, he was in Lithuania, where he underwent eye surgery.
““I have nothing to reproach myself for.”
Also recently, Zbigniew M. made it clear that he was abroad.
I have nothing to reproach myself with. After completing the treatment, I will return to the country and take a test. I have not received any summons for questioning. It is even more incomprehensible that the police are looking for me.
– said the mayor of Suwałki in an interview with a local radio station on August 19.
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nt/PAP/Radio 5
