Mayor denies illegal income charges after tabloid claims he owns $500,000

Mayor of Warsaw, Pawel Piskorski, has responded to accusations that he built up a personal fortune while serving as a politician. In an article, the "Super Express" tabloid claimed that the mayor owns property worth $500,000. Piskorski insists that he earned the money through dealings on the stock exchange and by trading works of art between 1993 and 1997, when he was not a politician. However, head of Transparency International and Warsaw councilor Julia Pitera points out that Piskorski was, in fact, a politician in those years, because he was a councilor in the capital city and leader of the Freedom Union (UW) in the Mazowsze Region. Piskorski, however, insists that there is no discrepancy between his income and the wealth he has built up over the past 11 years. The Warsaw mayor says that his incomes from stock exchange investments and trading in antiques have been checked and verified by the tax authorities. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 5) P.W.