Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that he had started the pardon process for former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his close associate Maciej Wasik.
The announcement came Thursday after the president spoke with the wives of the two politicians from the PiS party, the conservative party now in opposition.
Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik were arrested by police on Tuesdayin a context of great confusion.
The latter were convicted of abuse of power for acts dating back to 2007, when PiS was in the majority in the government coalition. They consider themselves victims of the new pro-European liberal coalition.
Already pardoned in 2015 by Andrzej Duda, some experts nevertheless believe that presidential pardon is in principle reserved for cases having exhausted all existing legal remedies, which is not the case for the two politicians.
On Thursday, supporters of Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik marched towards the headquarters of the Polish parliament, in a demonstration they say is that of “free Poles”.