Robert Szustkowski is engaged in litigation against journalists Grzegorz Rzeczkowski and Tomasz Piatek, and the editors and publishers where their press materials, interviews and books were published between 2016 and 2024. As part of these disputes, Robert Szustkowski is pursuing a number of cases for violations of his personal rights and is forced to take on more. It should be mentioned that many of these cases ended favorably for Robert Szustkowski, and yet the above-mentioned journalists continue to use a defamatory narrative against him. Szustkowski thus became the object of a kind of media “lynching” and harassment through repeated and long-term perpetuation of slander in the broadly understood media (including social media). The editors are trying to build their position in the world of investigative journalism, among others, thanks to the dubious reliability of publications about Robert Szustkowski. Grzegorz Rzeczkowski and Tomasz Piątek linked the person of Robert Szustkowski to an absurd number of scandals and journalistic conjectures that are hard to count (Appendix 1).
In 2020, the District Court in Warsaw, XXIV Civil Division (sygn. Sygn. akt XXIV C 47/17 zagr), ruled on the case of violations of personal rights brought by Robert Szustkowski against Ringier Axel Springer Polska LTD, based in Warsaw, publisher of the websites: www.fakt.pl, www.onet.pl, www.newsweek.pl and the dailynews Fakt. Examples of violations of personal rights considered by the court are attached as Appendix 2.
According to the Court, the series of articles published in press titles owned by RASP violated Szustkowski’s personal rights in the form of good name and dignity. According to the Court, Robert Szustkowski was unfairly portrayed as a negative person with ties to the Russian mafia, at the behest of which he was an alleged wiretapping contractor in the so-called “wiretapping scandal”, allegedly conducted business with former KGB officers, Russian GRU intelligence, and allegedly performed special assignments.
The court also referred to Szustkowski’s involvement in “the wiretapping scandal” itself. According to the court, these circumstances were clarified in the criminal proceedings, in which Szustkowski was not a defendant or even a suspect, and therefore could not be involved in this scandal.
Szustkowski has been accused of criminal acts in the disputed publications, including carrying out activities for a foreign intelligence service, and participation in an organized criminal group. The court found that such claims put the person of Robert Szustkowski in a bad light, causing a negative assessment in the average public perception, aiming to create the impression that he is a criminal which also violated his personal rights.
The Court also found as a violation of personal rights the claim made by journalists that the opportunity to serve as Gambia’s chargé d’affaires in Russia was due to allegedly doing business with former KGB officers.
Also, in the case of a series of articles on Robert Szustkowski’s alleged ties to Russia in the context of access to secret information of the so-called “Russian liaison” Jacek Kotas (who was supposed to have received access to them from Antoni Macierewicz), the court ruled that unreliable, unverified press information was published, which could not serve the public interest.
In addition, the District Court found that the testimony presented by ed. Tomasz Piątek (who was a witness in the case) proved unsuitable for the ruling. The court conducted witness testimony on the following facts, among others, maintaining the requirements of diligence and journalistic integrity at the stage of collecting and using press materials. The publications authored by Tomasz Piątek were one of the sources of information for the journalists who prepared the articles under scrutiny in the case. In evaluating his testimony, the Court found that Piątek overwhelmingly obtained his information from third parties, and in view of the RASP’s passivity in terms of evidentiary initiative to verify these sources, the witness’s testimony proved useless. Also, his conclusions were an over-interpretation of the evidence in the case (Appendix 3).
At the same time, excerpts from the book “Foreign alphabet. How the Kremlin and PiS people played with wiretapping” by Grzegorz Rzeczkowski (one of the evidence in the case in support of the disputed publications describing Szustkowski’s alleged shady ties with Russia and his involvement in the wiretapping scandal), were not a reliable source of information for the Court (Appendix 4).
The Court also ruled that journalists should not rely on a source whose objectivity or reliability is questionable (third parties, books or reprints of newspaper articles). According to the Court, such information should be duly verified and critically analyzed by journalists before its publication, which did not happen in the present case. According to the Court, the basic requirement for a journalist is to carefully and reliably verify the sources on the basis of which he or she prepares a press publication, an obligation that the journalists preparing the disputed publications failed to meet. Also important to the Court was the fact that the journalists preparing the disputed materials did not ask Szustkowski to verify the information they had before publishing the articles.
In the present case, the court had no doubt that RASP was at least guilty of gross negligence for violating Szustkowski’s personal rights. RASP, in carrying out an unlawful violation of the personal rights of the person of Robert Szustkowski, failed to properly and diligently verify the veracity of the claims contained in the disputed press material. The publication of a number of newspaper articles in RASP was found by the court to be undoubtedly harmful.
It is therefore not surprising that on the basis of the above-mentioned court ruling, RASP concluded a settlement with Robert Szustkowski, admitting that the above-mentioned statements are untrue. RASP published Robert Szustkowski’s apology and removed the articles that slandered him.
Robert Szustkowski also concluded two settlements with Agora S.A. regarding articles defamatory of him.
Below you will find a list of key resolutions od court disputes and settlements favorable to Robert Szustkowski, which contradict the claims made by the aforementioned journalists:
- The final judgment of the vetting court i.e. District Court of Warsaw XVII Criminal Division dated October 22, 2019. In the case ref. file XVII K 56/19,
- Court settlement with Agora S.A. dated October 7, 2019, based on which Robert Szustkowski’s image and personal data were removed from numerous newspaper articles,
- Settlement with Agora S.A. dated May 20, 2021, pursuant to which excerpts from press articles slandering Robert Szustkowski were removed,
- Correction to the press article by Grzegorz Rzeczkowski dated September 5, 2018, published in the weekly Polityka – Appendix 5,
- Settlement agreement with Ringier Axel Springer Polska sp. z o.o. dated October 26, 2020,
- Ringier Axel Springer Polska sp. z o.o. permanently removed a series of articles from its web portals (2020),
- The apology by Ringier Axel Springer Polska sp. z o.o. for a number of negative publications about Robert Szustkowski – Appendix No. 6,
- Annex to the aforementioned settlement agreement dated October 13, 2022,
- Posting of a corrigendum to newspaper articles in Newsweek Polska – Appendix No. 7,
Unfortunately, despite these resolutions and settlements, journalists have not been deterred from continuing to reproduce untruths and vilify the person of Robert Szustkowski in the pages of the various press titles they are currently working with. Perhaps this is due to a series of court cases that Szustkowski has brought against them and the public houses, where they have published negative articles about him:
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Case against Jan Śpiewak and the Association “Miasto jest Nasze” (Supreme Court file reference II CSKP 121/22)
It should be added here that the first person to attack Robert Szustkowski in the media was Jan Śpiewak and the association “Miasto jest nasze”, of which he was the then head. The Court of First Instance ordered the removal of Szustkowski’s image from the reprivatization map. The court found that the Association “Miasto Jest Nasze” in Warsaw violated the personal rights of the plaintiff in the form of an image that was published without his consent. Thus, this action was illegal. Therefore, under Article 24 of the Civil Code, § 1 and 3 of the Civil Code, the Court ordered the Association, in accordance with the claim, to remove the image (photograph) of Robert Szustkowski from the Warsaw reprivatization map, published on the website at http://reprywatyzacja.miastojestnasze.org/. The Court of Appeal in Warsaw, in its judgment of 28 March 2019, partially changed the judgment of the District Court in such a way that it obliged the Association “Miasto Jest Nasze” to submit a statement of apology by 11 April 2019 (annex no. 8) for publicly disseminating false information suggesting that Robert Szustkowski is allegedly one of the persons who participated in the so-called “wild reprivatization” and that he is supposedly a member of an organized criminal group that extorts real estate using reprivatization procedures, thereby damaging his good name, as well as for violating the right to his image. A penalty of PLN 10,000 for charitable purposes was also awarded. In the opinion of this Court, the personal rights of Robert Szustkowski were violated by publicly disseminated false statements suggesting that the plaintiff, as one of the persons listed on the “Warsaw reprivatization map”, (1) constitutes an organized criminal group operating in Warsaw that extorts real estate using reprivatization procedures” (statement in an interview of September 19, 2016) and (2) participated in the so-called “wild reprivatization”.2. Case against Grzegorz Rzeczkowski and Polityka sp. z o.o. S.K.A. (District Court in Warsaw file reference II C 491/19 – pending). In the case regarding the protection of personal rights, the District Court granted security to Robert Szustkowski until the end of the case. All articles by Grzegorz Rzeczkowski in Polityka that are the subject of the dispute have been accompanied by Polityka’s statement on granting security in the following content: “This article is the subject of the dispute in the proceedings for the protection of personal rights, which are pending before the District Court in Warsaw on the claim of Robert Szustkowski, who disputes some of his statements, considering that they violate his personal rights. This statement is published as security granted by the Court for the duration of the proceedings.” (example – appendix 9).
3. Case against Tomasz Piątek (District Court in Warsaw file reference II C 486/23) – the Court dismissed the claim despite the final lustration judgment clearing Robert Szustkowski of the charge of collaborating with WSW, an appeal was filed against the non-final judgment of the First Instance.
4. Case against Tomasz Piątek and Wydawnictwo “Arbitror” (Supreme Court, Case No. I CKS 2670/23)
The court of second instance ruled that the good name of Robert Szustkowski in Tomasz Piątek’s book “Macierewicz and his secrets” was violated by Tomasz Piątek’s quotation of a statement by a third party calling Robert Szustkowski a gangster and indicating his behavior that could be described as gangster-like, which was accompanied by information that Robert Szustkowski carried a gun and contacted members of the Pruszków mafia, sat with them in a café, and cooperated. In addition, he used money from Russians, and of uncertain origin, associated with a Russian bank (MontationalSpiecBank), whose activity ended in a scandal and the withdrawal of customer funds. In the Court’s opinion, such a statement clearly had a negative impact on Szustkowski’s reputation as a businessman. Publicly accusing someone of closeness and cooperation with a group of people organizing themselves to commit crimes is an insult to the honor of every person. (…) Merely associating someone with people committing crimes violates the personal rights of that person. However, since it was not the author’s statement, the Court found that it was not unlawful. The Supreme Court dismissed the cassation appeal in this case.5. Case against Ringier Axel Springer Polska sp. z o.o. (settlement concluded on 26.10.2020)
6. Criminal case for defamation against Mr. Tomasz Piątek (District Court for Warsaw Mokotów in Warsaw, 8th Criminal Division, Case No. VIII K 357/24)
7. Criminal case against Mr. Tomasz Piątek and Ewa Domżala (case no. 5 Ds.1025.2018.1). The Court issued a decision to discontinue the proceedings. The reason for the dismissal of the case by the Court was the assumption that since no proceedings were pending against Robert Szustkowski, there were no grounds for applying Article 235 of the Penal Code in the criminal case against Mr. Piątek and Mr. E. Domżałe for fabricating evidence. However, the Court found that Robert Szustkowski should pursue his cases by way of infringement of personal rights, because there are grounds for this.
Attachments:
Appendix 1 – a list of scandals and journalistic conjectures
Appendix 2 -examples of violations of personal rights
Appendix 3 – Tomasz Piątek’s testimony – justification for judgment against RASP
Appendix 4 – Court about the book “Obcym alfabetem..” by G. Rzeczkowski
Appendix 5 – a correction to the article by Grzegorz Rzeczkowski in the Polityka weekly newspaper
Appendix 6 – RASP apology to Robert Szustkowski
Appendix 7 – Apology of Newsweek Polska to Robert Szustkowski
Appendix 8 – Apology from the Miasto Jest Nasze Association
Appendix 9 – sample article in “Polityka” with the statement of security granted
