A few days ago, another false and manipulated piece of information appeared published by editor Tomasz Piątek on social media about Robert Szustkowski. For many years, editor T. Piątek has been creating the impression in the media space of disseminating allegedly true information. This is supposedly confirmed by his announcements on social media about cases he has won.
Unfortunately, the example of Robert Szustkowski shows that not all of these announcements are reliable and correspond to the essence of the disputes or proceedings that were underway. One such example is the latest statement by editor Tomasz Piątek on social media (platform X and Facebook), in which he stated that he won the case for falsifying evidence against Robert Szustkowski because he revealed that:
- “his partner’s wife testified in the Sejm about Sz.’s connections with the Kremlin and PiS”
- “her partner was stabbed 11 times by a person associated with Sz.”
The source of this “information” was supposed to be, as editor Piątek himself states, “the wife of the partner”. Who is this person and what is this case?
This concerns the case from 2018, which Robert Szustkowski filed against Tomasz Piątek and Ewa Domżała (i.e. “the wife of the partner”), after the publication of the article in Gazeta Wyborcza “Settlements of nationalists: 11 blows, two to the head. What is Ewa Domżała afraid of?”, in which it was described as Ewa Domżała supposedly speaking publicly about Robert Szustkowski’s alleged connections with the Russian mafia of Solncevo (and not the Kremlin!). However, editor Piątek forgot to add in his latest statement on social media that all mentions of Robert Szustkowski in this article were removed after the court settlement with AGORA S.A. in 2019.
Already 6 years ago (in March 2018!), the media widely described the case of Ms. E. Domżała – an alleged witness and source of information for Tomasz Piątek – https://newsrm.tv/komunikat-pr/robert-szustkowski-wraz-marzena-szustkowska-skladaja-zawiadomienie-prokuratury-ewe-domzale-zaprzeczaja-pomowieniem/ or https://di.com.pl/robert-szustkowski-wraz-marzena-szustkowska-skladaja-zawiadomienie-do-prokuratury-na-ewe-domzale-i-zaprzeczaja-pomowieniem-56862
As if that was not enough, in the criminal case cited by Tomasz Piątek (ref. 5 Ds.1025.2018.1) in 2019, Ms. Ewa Domżała stated that she had talked about Robert Szustkowski with a journalist from “Gazeta Wyborcza” named Piątek and Rzeczkowski from “Polityka”. She then testified that the journalists contacted her and it was a casual conversation, and she did not authorize their articles and did not familiarize herself with their content before publication. She also testified that the journalists conveyed their truth there using her. She also stated that it was the journalists (Tomasz Piątek and Grzegorz Rzeczkowski) who said about Robert Szustkowski’s alleged contacts with the Sołncewo mafia and the fact that Tomasz Piątek wrote about Robert Szustkowski’s cooperation with the mafia, and she would never have said something like that and it would never have occurred to her. She stated that the claims about Robert Szustkowski’s connections with the mafia are the work of journalists.
In turn, on November 26, 2020, while testifying in the same case, when asked what Ewa Domżała knew about the article “Nationalists’ Settlements: 11 Blows, Two to the Head. What Is Ewa Domżała Afraid of?”, she said that she had contacted, among others, Tomasz Piątek after the attack described in the article and that what the journalists wrote on the subject was embellished by them in order to make propaganda. She considered that the knife fight was probably unrelated to the Robert Szustkowski case. She also testified that Piątek “inflated” the story she told him. When asked by the lawyer whether Piątek knew that the victim of the attack was not her fiancé, she replied that he did. Therefore, the statement about the “partner’s wife’s cohabitant” in these circumstances is not based on the truth. However, this does not prevent Piątek from repeating false statements and suggestions. Also, Robert Szustkowski’s alleged connections with Judyta B. are untrue and editor Piątek knows this perfectly well, because he was a party to the aforementioned case and probably knows its files. And since he is an investigative journalist, he should have also delved into the files of the case of the attack described in the article, to which Robert Szustkowski was never a party.
It is worth adding here that according to the psychological opinion prepared by the Expert of the District Court in Warsaw, a clinical psychologist (present during the hearing of Ewa Domżała in the preparatory proceedings), the testifier was mentally alert, and the psychologist did not indicate that Ewa Domżała’s testimony contained elements of confabulation, fantasizing, suggested content or conscious distortions, which confirms that when testifying in the prosecutor’s office she told the truth, that she never claimed that Robert Szustkowski was associated with the Sołncewo mafia and did not pass on such information to journalist Tomasz Piątek and journalist Grzegorz Rzeczkowski, and that the journalists passed on their truth using it.
The situation in which editor Piątek, being a party to the proceedings and thus having access to full information, omits these obvious and verifiable facts, probably results from the fact that indicating them would completely undermine not only the credibility of his claims about Robert Szustkowski, but also his credibility as an investigative journalist. It is therefore more convenient to write about another won case without going into its essence, additionally repeating the alleged revelations of the witness, than to beat one’s breast and admit that his main source of information denied that it was conveyed in the form described in the articles by editor Piątek.
As for the alleged connections with PiS, Robert Szustkowski has already publicly stated that he is an apolitical person and associating him with any political party is unfounded. Editor Piątek decided to remain silent about this as well.
THE CASE WAS DISMISSED, NOT LOST
Editor Tomasz Piątek did not win anything, it is about the decision to discontinue the proceedings, not about winning or losing the court case. The reason for the dismissal of the case by the Court was the assumption that since no proceedings are pending against Robert Szustkowski, there are no grounds for applying Article 235 of the Penal Code in the criminal case against editor Piątek and E. Domżała for fabricating evidence. However, the Court found that Robert Szustkowski should pursue his rights by violating personal rights, because there are grounds for doing so. Unfortunately, editor Piątek also ignores this fact as it does not fit into his narrative.
So this is what editor Piątek’s “victory” looks like.