Cooperation with Ukraine in Nowak case 'exemplary' - Polish prosecutor general

"Poland's Prosecutor General, Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro acknowledged that cooperation with the Ukrainian side in the case of the former Ukravtodor head is exemplary," the statement reads.

It notes that on July 21, the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw filed a petition for the three-month arrest of Nowak, as well as Dariusz Z., a former commander of Poland's elite GROM special forces unit, and Jacek P., a businessman from Gdansk.

Earlier reports said that Poland's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CAB) had detained Slawomir Nowak, the former Polish transport minister who later headed Ukraine's State Road Agency (Ukravtodor), for corruption and activities in a criminal organization.

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) reported later that they, together with Ukraine's Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, CAB and the District Prosecutor's Office, were conducting searches in Kyiv, Lviv, and Poland as part of a joint investigation into the activities of a criminal organization in the road industry.

NABU Director Artem Sytnyk said on July 20 that one suspicion notice, in this case, would be approved in Ukraine and other suspicion notices would be approved by Polish law enforcement officers. He added that the issue of handing out suspicion notices, detention and choosing measures of restraint in Ukraine, in this case, was being coordinated with their Polish colleagues.

Sytnyk also said that he did not see the need to extradite Nowak to Ukraine. According to him, it does not matter where the trial will take place, because criminal acts are jointly assessed by Ukrainian and Polish law enforcement officers.

Nowak headed the Polish Transport Ministry from 2011 to 2013. Between October 19, 2016 and October 1, 2019, he served as the acting Ukravtodor head. He received Ukrainian citizenship in October 2016.

Photo: PAP/Mateusz Marek