Poland’s conservative President Andrzej Duda announced on Tuesday that he had pardoned two former populist lawmakers, including a former interior minister recently sentenced to two years in prison, whom he called “political prisoners,” AFP reported.

“The decision on the right to pardon has been made. They are pardoned,” President Andrzej Duda said in a televised statement, demanding their “immediate release.”

The President made this decision despite the negative conclusion of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

In December, a Polish court sentenced former interior minister Mariusz Kaminski and his deputy Maciej Wasik, prominent members of the populist nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, to two years each for abuse of power in a case dating back to 2007.

Kaminsky headed the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau at the time and was convicted of organizing a false corruption case against a political official.

The highly publicized case has created a new rift in the political dispute between the new government of pro-European liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost eight years of power after the October election. years Both political camps accuse each other of violating the rule of law, justice and the press – the main topics of confrontation.

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