President Feared Suing Onet Under Election Procedure, Government Spokesman Says

The president was afraid to file suit over Onet’s article “Karol Nawrocki and the Secrets of the Grand Hotel” under the election procedure during the 2025 presidential campaign, government spokesman Adam Szłapka said. In his view, the president “was afraid of defeat.”

On Tuesday, the Warsaw Regional Court held another hearing in the civil case, under way since mid-September, brought by Karol Nawrocki against the owner of the Onet news portal, Ringier Axel Springer Polska, over the violation of personal rights.

The dispute concerns an article published in May of last year, according to which Nawrocki, while working as a security guard at the Grand Hotel in Sopot, allegedly took part in the “practice of bringing in prostitutes” for guests. Onet reported that the information came from Nawrocki’s then-colleagues in the hotel’s security staff.

The government spokesman was asked about the trial at a press conference on Tuesday. “Everything that can be said about this is contained in one sentence: in 2025, if the president wanted to sue over this matter, he was afraid to do it under the election procedure, because he knew the case would be decided before the election,” Adam Szłapka said.

In his view, the president “wanted to have an element of the election campaign, in which he sues because he claims someone is saying something untrue, but he was afraid of that ruling before the election.” “That means he was afraid of defeat,” he stressed.

He also said that the efforts by the president’s associates to keep the trial from being open to the public “say a lot about what the president fears when it comes to the disclosure of his past.”

On Tuesday, one of the informants of the authors of the Onet article “Karol Nawrocki and the Secrets of the Grand Hotel” testified in court. The woman described a situation she witnessed while on duty near the Grand Hotel’s reception desk.

“I noticed that Karol was entering the hotel with a woman and a man, which was already quite unusual, because we generally didn’t (…) bring guests into the hotel,” she said. She added that she then saw Nawrocki get into the elevator with them and go up to the floors where the guest rooms were located.

The witness said the situation surprised her greatly. She added that both Nawrocki and the people with him behaved casually.

The woman said that when Nawrocki returned to the reception area, she asked him what that situation she had seen was about. “Karol only replied that you can make some extra money by bringing girls to guests, and that if I felt like it, I could join in too,” the witness testified.

She stressed that Nawrocki’s answer shocked her, and she turned him down “in rather sharp and mocking words.”

The witness said the appearance of the woman accompanying Nawrocki did not suggest to her who she was. She said she based her claim that the woman was a prostitute on her conversation with Nawrocki.

On Tuesday, the court decided to adjourn the hearing until Jan. 18, 2027. Karol Nawrocki is then expected to testify as a party to the case. That hearing is to be held in hybrid format.

Judge Aleksandra Orzechowska, who is handling the case, ordered the president to appear in person at the January hearing, either on site or remotely, on pain of “disregarding evidence from his testimony in the event of unexcused absence.”

On May 26 of last year, during the campaign ahead of the presidential election, Onet published an article by Andrzej Stankiewicz and Jacek Harłukowicz titled “Karol Nawrocki and the Secrets of the Grand Hotel.” After the article was published, Nawrocki, then still a presidential candidate, announced a civil lawsuit and the filing of a private indictment in a criminal case.

After Onet published the article in May 2025, Nawrocki announced a civil lawsuit to protect personal rights and the filing of a private indictment in a criminal case over what he called “a pack of lies and hatred.”

Jakub Kudła, head of the legal department at RASP, told PAP that the lawsuit pointed, among other things, to a violation of Nawrocki’s honor and dignity. He added that the president is demanding that the company publish an apology. (PAP)

Court Orders Onet to Hand Over Any Recordings of Conversations With Grand Hotel Informants

On Tuesday, the Warsaw Regional Court ordered Onet editor-in-chief Bartosz Węglarczyk and the authors of the article “Karol Nawrocki and the Secrets of the Grand Hotel” to submit to the case file any recordings of the journalists’ conversations with two of their informants, who were former security guards at the Sopot hotel.

The court thus granted a motion by Bogusław Kosmus, one of Karol Nawrocki’s attorneys.

The attorney noted that the recordings would be important for establishing how the authors of the disputed article came into contact with those informants. He added that they would also make it possible to determine whether the journalists tried to verify the information obtained from their sources and whether they exercised due diligence in doing so.

Onet editor-in-chief Bartosz Węglarczyk was ordered to provide any recordings, as were the two authors of the article “Karol Nawrocki and the Secrets of the Grand Hotel,” published at the end of May last year: Jacek Harłukowicz and Andrzej Stankiewicz.

According to the disputed article, Nawrocki, when he worked as a security guard at the Grand Hotel in Sopot about 20 years ago, allegedly took part in the “practice of bringing in prostitutes” for guests. Onet reported that the information came from Nawrocki’s then-colleagues in the hotel’s security staff. After Onet published the article in May 2025, Nawrocki, then a candidate in the presidential election, announced legal action over what he called “a pack of lies and hatred.”

The civil case brought by Karol Nawrocki against Ringier Axel Springer Polska, the owner of the Onet portal, has been under way before the Warsaw Regional Court since mid-September of this year. A private indictment against the article’s authors, concerning defamation, has also been filed with the Warsaw district court.

Ewa Fiutka (PAP)