Following the Onet report, a member of parliament for Civic Coalition appeared on television to vouch for it. “I have knowledge that all the information presented … in the Onet article is simply true,” Agnieszka Pomaska, a member of parliament for the region where the alleged offenses took place, told TVN24.
Nawrocki sued Onet over the story. Still, his critics point out that he, significantly, did not do so under the special fast-track “election mode” of court proceedings that would have required a final decision within 48 hours for allegations made during a campaign. Now, the case will likely take months, if not years, to resolve.
Asked by Wirtualna Polska whether the allegations were false, Nawrocki said: “Absolutely. I was slandered.”
“The hotel hosted everyone from [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to political elites and music stars performing at the Sopot Festival. What guests do for entertainment is their business — I had nothing to do with it. My job was to ensure their safety and security,” he added.
Football hooliganism
Nawrocki admitted he took part in a brawl between hooligans from rival football clubs from Gdańsk and Poznań in 2009 when he was 26 and had just begun work in the Institute for National Remembrance, a state agency tracking Nazi and Communist crimes against Poles.
The fight, which the keen pugilist Nawrocki called “sparring,” had been investigated at the time, with Wirtualna Polska reporting that some of the participants had serious criminal records.