Opposition MEP to appeal court's verdict in case vs. ruling party leader

Radoslaw Sikorski, an MEP and former foreign minister, has said he will appeal against a court verdict ordering him to post an apology on social media to the head of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Sikorski, a leading member of Poland's opposition, has long had a fraught relationship with Kaczynski, with the two rarely seeing eye to eye.

Taking to Twitter on Tuesday Sikorski wrote that he would "definitely appeal".

The court punished the former foreign minister for a Twitter post he made in January 2021 about the naming of a street after the late President Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw's twin brother, who died in the 2010 Smolensk air disaster.

The aircraft he was travelling on crashed as it came in to land at Smolensk, killing all 96 on board.

"Lech Kaczynski was a mediocre president and contributed greatly to the Smolensk catastrophe," he wrote.

"He already has (a burial at – PAP) Wawel Castle and there is also the unauthorised construction (of a monument – PAP) on Pilsudski Square," added the MEP. "Enough building up a cult for which there is no basis."

Adrian Salus, Jaroslaw Kaczynski's attorney, told PAP on Tuesday that the District Court in Warsaw, in its judgment issued on March 17, obliged Sikorski to publish an apology on his Twitter account within seven days of the verdict becoming final in which he apologises to Jaroslaw Kaczynski for infringing on his personal rights by writing on Twitter that the late President Lech Kaczynski had significantly contributed to the Smolensk catastrophe.

Official investigations into the crash concluded that it was an accident caused by a number of factors, although this is contested by Kaczynski, who has claimed an explosion brought down the aircraft.

Last year, a government committee produced a report into the disaster that concluded two explosion had caused the aircraft to crash.