Prosecutors seized hospital director's phone to trace journalists' source in Lenz case

Phone seized from hospital director

Prosecutors from the Bydgoszcz District Prosecutor's Office secured the phone of Mariusz Trojanowski, director of the county hospital in Aleksandrów Kujawski, according to Wirtualna Polska (WP). He was summoned as a witness in September, and after questioning he was handed a decision requiring him to surrender the device, with officers reportedly warning they could search it and take it by force. The decision also listed data on Michał Janczura, the WP reporter who wrote the story. WP assumes prosecutors had earlier analysed phone billing records showing the director had been in contact with the journalist. Prosecution spokeswoman Agnieszka Adamska-Okońska told WP the phone could have been used to pass on information, but she did not say what investigators were looking for. She added that the journalist's own billing records had not been checked.

Background to the surgery

The case began with a visit on 15 March to the county hospital in Aleksandrów Kujawski, where senator Tomasz Lenza of Civic Coalition (KO) arrived with a relative. Instead of going to admissions, they went straight to the surgical ward, where the relative underwent a procedure carried out by doctors on duty. Lenza later said the relative was his son. WP published its account on 7 April. The National Health Fund (NFZ) found in an inspection that the procedure was not part of publicly funded contracted services and fined the hospital 134,000 zloty. In April, Lenza said he had filed a notification with prosecutors about a possible offence of disclosing personal data. WP describes two separate strands: suspected irregularities in the procedure, and who passed information to the media. Prosecutors had reportedly tried in June to make the newsroom reveal its sources, and when that failed they turned to the hospital.

Minister Żurek says he learned from the media

Justice minister and prosecutor general Waldemar Żurek wrote on X that he had learned of the prosecution's steps from the media.

“I learned from the media about the actions taken by the prosecution in the matter of disclosing information about the surgery on senator Tomasz Lenza's son.”

In an interview with a WP reporter, Żurek said he had no such information and backed splitting the posts of justice minister and prosecutor general. He said the prosecutor general is not told about every proceeding and that prosecutors decide evidentiary steps on their own. Together with National Prosecutor Dariusz Korneluk, he said they had taken steps to examine whether citizens' rights and freedoms had been violated. He added that journalistic secrecy should be respected, but that he still had to check how it applied in this case.

Political and press reactions

Politicians have demanded explanations, and commentators have framed the case as a threat to press freedom. Dagmara Pawełczyk-Woicka, former chair of the National Council of the Judiciary, said journalists expose abuses while prosecutors go through billing records to find an informant.

“We are heading towards a police state.”

Michał Rachoń, programme director of TV Republika, called the case an 'absolute scandal' and said such practices belong to authoritarian states and dictatorships. Konrad Siemaszko, coordinator of the Free Speech programme at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFPC), told WP that the step touches journalistic secrecy and therefore carries special guarantees. WP also argues that prosecutors need a court's consent to lift journalistic secrecy if they suspect a device holds protected material, and that the messages could include content unrelated to the case but useful to the ruling party.