Court rejects arrest request for man detained near Constitutional Court
A man detained on Friday near the Constitutional Court was released. The District Court Warsaw-Śródmieście did not accept the prosecutor's request for a month-long remand in custody.
Court rejects arrest request for man detained near Constitutional Court
The District Court Warsaw-Śródmieście did not accept the prosecutor's request for the temporary arrest of a man detained on Friday near the Constitutional Court — pap.pl reported on Sunday, citing a statement by defence counsel Magdalena Prządka-Leszczyńska, the detainee's lawyer.
The man left the courthouse after 16:00. In a brief statement he thanked MPs for their support, stated that he was tired, and declared that he had been a technical officer during the assembly, preparing meals for participants and assembling equipment.
The prosecutor indicated that on Friday the police had detained the man after he failed to respond to an attempt to check his identification and pushed police officers. According to the account provided by Warsaw police and published in body camera footage, the man resisted and was subsequently restrained in the entrance of a premises on Marszałkowska Street. During a search, a folding knife was found on him. The police reported that a female officer sustained a head injury and was taken to hospital.
Counsel Prządka-Leszczyńska emphasised that the knife was found only after the search, when the man was already lying on the ground. She pointed out that possessing a dangerous implement while taking part in an assembly constitutes a misdemeanour, and remand in custody is not applied in cases of misdemeanours. She added that the detainee did not participate in the assembly itself, merely was present and performed technical functions.
The prosecutor justified the arrest request by citing fears that the man would abscond, noting that from the outset he had refused to provide his personal and address details. The spokesman for the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor's Office, prosecutor Piotr Antoni Skiba, added that the questioned man refused to give a statement and did not admit to the acts he was accused of.
Skiba explained that the detention was related to a heightened security level in force in Poland with the codename Bravo, which means greater scrutiny of individuals behaving in an unusual manner, for instance those who do not respond to identification checks.
After the arrest request was filed, the man fainted and was transported by ambulance to hospital. The court's decision drew comment from politicians. Jarosław Kaczyński, chairman of the Law and Justice party, wrote on the X platform that the court had not acceded to the "absurd request", and that the decision exposed lies and violence accompanying the detention.
Source: Google News PL — Crime (pl)