Polish Film Producer Gets Prison Term

Lew Rywin, a leading Polish film executive whose company co-produced the Academy Award-winning movies “Schindler’s List” and “The Pianist” was found guilty of fraud Monday and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in a corruption case that captivated this nation.

Rywin was convicted of trying to solicit a $17.5-million bribe from Gazeta Wyborcza in exchange for helping to ensure parliamentary action that would have enabled the major newspaper’s publishing company, Agora, to buy a nationwide television station. The Warsaw District Court also fined him about $25,000.

The producer’s lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.

Rywin looked shaken after hearing the decision at the end of the five-month trial. He did not speak immediately after the verdict, but in his closing remarks before the court last Tuesday he said: “I’m innocent, I repeat, innocent. I did not make any offers. I’m a victim of a provocation set by Agora.” In a breaking voice he added, “I believe the verdict will be a just one.”

After Monday’s verdict, he told Polish private radio station RMF-FM, “I have lost a battle but not the war.”

The case, dubbed Rywingate, was one of the highest-profile corruption scandals in Poland since the end of communism in 1989. It had all the elements of a popular soap opera: a movie mogul, a former dissident turned newspaper editor, a prime minister and other people from the high echelons of power, and televised hearings by a special parliamentary panel set up to investigate the case. For months, millions of viewers were glued to their TV sets watching the real-life drama of power and intrigue.

The scandal erupted in December 2002 when Gazeta Wyborcza alleged in a front-page article that the film producer had met months earlier with its chief editor, Adam Michnik, and demanded a bribe for actions that would lead to passage of a media law favorable to Gazeta’s publisher.

According to the story, Rywin claimed he represented a “group holding power,” including Prime Minister Leszek Miller.

Michnik, a former anti-communist dissident, recorded the conversation, and the newspaper tried for several months to conduct its own investigation before bringing the scandal into the open.

The case shook the political scene here, hurting Poland’s image as a country prepared to join the European Union and splitting Miller’s Democratic Left Alliance. It was one of the factors that forced the prime minister last month to announce his resignation.

Ewa Grochowska-Szmitkowska, one of the three judges in the case, said Rywin had caused extreme damage but that the producer had already paid a high price, as his name for many Poles had become “a symbol of fraud and corruption.”

The prosecutors filed charges of influence peddling, suggesting that there were people in high positions who stood behind Rywin. But the court convicted him solely on fraud charges, saying there was no conclusive proof of such involvement.

Miller, who will leave office Sunday, a day after Poland joins the European Union, has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the scandal.

“This case has meant a great loss to me personally and to my political party,” the prime minister said Monday. “There was no ‘group holding power’ and I did not send Mr. Rywin to anyone.

“I would like to hear a word of apology from all those who for many months had done everything to persuade the public opinion that it was the Democratic Left Alliance and me personally who were behind it,” he added.

The chief of the newspaper’s publishing company expressed disappointment with the court’s decision.

“It’s good to catch a paid assassin, but it would be better to know who signed the contract,” said Wanda Rapaczynska, the president of Agora. “A middleman was caught. The real culprits remain unpunished.”

Michnik, the Gazeta Wyborcza editor, shared Rapaczynska’s disappointment. “Politics entered the courtroom by the side door and justice left it by another,” he said.

The court, meanwhile, was unhappy with Gazeta’s behavior. Presiding Judge Marek Celej chastised the newspaper, saying that it had tried to exert pressure on the court by writing stories suggesting that such a verdict would be a failure of Poland’s justice system.

“And what wouldn’t be a failure? Only such verdict as would satisfy Gazeta,” said the judge, who added that the decision was based solely on the evidence.