Former President Kwaśniewski questioned over pardon

"He said nothing that we didn't already know," said the investigators. The interrogation of Kwaśniewski was related to his pardoning of the banker Peter Vogel in 2000 who was named Piotr Filipczyński and 30 years ago murdered a 75-year old woman. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but escaped from Poland in 1983 during a conditional suspension of the sentence. He was found a dozen years later under a different name, as a highly ranked official of Swiss Coutts Bank. In 1999 he was deported to Poland and one year later pardoned. The prosecutor suspects that bribes paid to left-wing politicians by the arrested lobbyist Marek D. were transferred to a bank account run by Vogel. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 7) M.M