Violent con man appointed as Deputy Health Minister

Prime Minister Marek Belka has selected Jacek Świątkiewicz as Deputy Health Minister responsible for pharmaceutical policies. The newly appointed politician is a former president of a Bydgoszcz-based drug producer who has already had trouble with the law. "Świątkiewicz earlier organized a con when he was a doctor. Having access to data concerning disabled patients, he issued receipts for expensive subsidised drugs. The patients knew nothing about these receipts which were transferred to a drug store in Bydgoszcz," disclosed a former adviser to Świątkiewicz, Dariusz Jałocha, who is also the director of the Bonus medical company. Świątkiewicz has agreed to pay back the money for the drugs only after the case was taken to court. After the affair was disclosed by a regional newspaper, the chief editor of the paper was allegedly threatened by Świątkiewicz that if the hospital would be mentioned again in an article his house will be torn down. Several days later the editor's house and car caught fire, but the culprits were never found. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 1) A.K.