Polish Businessman Who Helped Ruling Camp Win Power Seeks Pardon

(Bloomberg) -- A businessman whose wiretapping scandal helped bring down Poland’s then pro-European government threatened to reveal details about the ruling party’s involvement if he’s not pardoned, a newspaper reported.

In his pardon request sent to President Andrzej Duda, Marek Falenta said he “did what he had to do, fulfilled all promises and was cruelly deceived by people from your political formation,” the daily Rzeczpospolita newspaper cited him as writing to the president, a former member of Law & Justice. Falenta’s lawyer, Marek Malecki, declined to comment on the report or the pardon request on Monday.

Four years ago, the party called Falenta’s recordings of pro-European politicians -- secretly made by waiters in Warsaw restaurants -- as “tapes of truth” for having portrayed them as disconnected elites. The former coal trader was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for illegal wiretapping before skipping bail. He was extradited to Poland from Spain in June.

The newspaper’s report comes just months before general elections in Poland, whose government has clashed with the European Union over judicial independence, immigration and democratic standards.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro rejected Falenta’s claims of potential cooperation with party figures as “hysteria” of a “weak and desperate” person.

The president’s office was evaluating the pardon request “just like any other pardon inquiry,” Duda’s chief of staff Krzysztof Szczerski said. It also sent the letter to state prosecutors.

--With assistance from Maciej Martewicz and Marek Strzelecki.

To contact the reporter on this story: Wojciech Moskwa in Warsaw at wmoskwa@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, ;Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Piotr Bujnicki

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