Polish interior minister survives confidence motion
Wednesday, 29-Oct-2003 11:01AM PST Story from AFP
Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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WARSAW, Oct 29 (AFP) - Poland´s Interior Minister Krzysztof Janik on Wednesday survived a vote of no-confidence after being accused by the parliamentary opposition of being responsible for a damaging corruption scandal involving top politicians and organised crime.
The motion, the 11th in two years against a minister in the leftist government of Prime Minister Leszek Miller, was rejected by 216 to 204, with seven deputies abstaining in the 460-seat lower house of parliament.
The vote came after police chief, General Antoni Kowalczyk, earlier resigned and was promptly replaced after being implicated in a corruption affair involving politicians, organised crime and the government.
Kowalczyk, who had been police chief for two years, was replaced by Leszek Szreder, 49, police chief in the northern town of Gdansk.
Kowalczyk has been accused of a dubious role in an affair involving links between officials of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SLD) and gangsters in Starachowice, an industrial town in central Poland.
His head was the latest to roll in the affair, after deputy Polish Interior Minister Zbigniew Sobotka was charged last month with causing a leak which led to the tipping off of two gangsters about a planned police swoop.
The scandal around Sobotka, who is close to Miller, blew up in July when the press revealed mafia-style links of SLD party officials at Starachowice.
Another SLD deputy, Andrzej Jagiello, is said to have tipped off the gangsters of a planned police operation against them. In the telephone call, which was recorded by the police, Jagiello said he had been informed by Sobotka.
Jagiello has already been charged and been stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Link
Wednesday, 29-Oct-2003 11:01AM PST Story from AFP
Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARSAW, Oct 29 (AFP) - Poland´s Interior Minister Krzysztof Janik on Wednesday survived a vote of no-confidence after being accused by the parliamentary opposition of being responsible for a damaging corruption scandal involving top politicians and organised crime.
The motion, the 11th in two years against a minister in the leftist government of Prime Minister Leszek Miller, was rejected by 216 to 204, with seven deputies abstaining in the 460-seat lower house of parliament.
The vote came after police chief, General Antoni Kowalczyk, earlier resigned and was promptly replaced after being implicated in a corruption affair involving politicians, organised crime and the government.
Kowalczyk, who had been police chief for two years, was replaced by Leszek Szreder, 49, police chief in the northern town of Gdansk.
Kowalczyk has been accused of a dubious role in an affair involving links between officials of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SLD) and gangsters in Starachowice, an industrial town in central Poland.
His head was the latest to roll in the affair, after deputy Polish Interior Minister Zbigniew Sobotka was charged last month with causing a leak which led to the tipping off of two gangsters about a planned police swoop.
The scandal around Sobotka, who is close to Miller, blew up in July when the press revealed mafia-style links of SLD party officials at Starachowice.
Another SLD deputy, Andrzej Jagiello, is said to have tipped off the gangsters of a planned police operation against them. In the telephone call, which was recorded by the police, Jagiello said he had been informed by Sobotka.
Jagiello has already been charged and been stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Link
posted by BEING HAD at 4:33 AM
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