Leszek Kraskowski leaves detention after prosecutor drops threat email charge, Sakiewicz pays bail
Investigative journalist Leszek Kraskowski left Warsaw's detention center on Friday after prosecutors admitted that forensic evidence no longer points to him as the sender of threatening emails to the Piaseczno police chief. TV Republika editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz posted the 25,000-złoty bail immediately.
Release after 27 days
On Friday, Leszek Kraskowski walked out of detention after the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor's Office lifted the three-month pre-trial arrest imposed on June 9. The decision came after the prosecutor acknowledged that the evidence for the main charge, sending threatening emails to the Piaseczno district police chief, had collapsed.
The findings to date have outdated the premise of high probability that Leszek K. committed this crime.
The bail and restrictions
The journalist was not fully freed: the court replaced detention with a package of non-custodial measures. These include police supervision with mandatory reporting twice a week at the Ursynów station, a ban on contacting witnesses, a 100-metre exclusion zone from the victim, and confiscation of his passport with a ban on leaving Poland. The bail was immediately covered by Tomasz Sakiewicz, the editor-in-chief of the right-wing station TV Republika.
My fortune is two thousand. That's all I have. I wouldn't have been able to afford this bail.
Collapse of the threat charge
The threatening email, which triggered the initial arrest on June 6, now appears to have been sent by someone else. A preliminary IT analysis of electronic devices belonging to Kraskowski, his wife, and his wife's partner found no link to the email, nor to a similar message sent two minutes earlier to the Prażmów police station.
The prosecutor's office will continue to wait for full forensic IT reports and information from the email service provider under an international legal assistance request.Alongside the investigative version pointing to this suspect, it is now impossible to reject an alternative possibility that the act was committed by another person or persons.
- Leszek Kraskowski arrested
- Court orders three-month pre-trial detention
- Prosecutor drops email threat charge, Kraskowski released on bail
Remaining allegations
Despite the collapse of the threat charge, Kraskowski remains a suspect in two other cases: physical and psychological abuse of a close person, and illegal possession of a gas weapon without a permit. The prosecutor stressed that these charges still pose a risk of witness tampering, which justifies the continuing non-isolation measures. "The circumstances of the crime of physical and mental abuse of a loved one still make the fear of obstruction real," the office said in a statement.
Inside the prison
Kraskowski, a 36-year veteran investigative journalist, described harsh detention conditions.
He also recounted bed bug bites and a dehumanising court hearing.The worst were the last days because of the heatwave. On Sunday there was practically a prison revolt.
Now free, he says he is beginning to suspect the whole affair was a professional operation rather than an amateur act.I felt like it was 1952. Only Stalin's portrait was missing. He let me speak for three minutes and then sent me back to the cell to ‘rest from work’.
Solidarity from a rival
Tomasz Sakiewicz justified his decision to pay the bail on the grounds of press freedom, despite Kraskowski's past criticism of him.
Sakiewicz also thanked Wojciech Czuchnowski, a journalist from the rival Gazeta Wyborcza, for initially behaving decently before allegedly retreating under pressure from the authorities.If we allow one innocent journalist to be locked up and silenced, we will allow all to be closed. Leszek Kraskowski is not even my fan—he has criticised me many times. It doesn't bother me at all.
