Corruption Scandal Winds Up

A year-long parliamentary probe of high-level corruption exonerated Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller and other officials in his left-wing administration on Monday of involvement in a bribery scandal.

A parliamentary committee voted to approve a report that said Poland's top film producer had solicited a bribe from a newspaper in return for favourable legislation, but that he had been acting on his own -- not on behalf of top officials.

The committee investigated accusations Lew Rywin, co-producer of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List", had sought $17.5 million from Gazeta Wyborcza on behalf of government officials, in return for legal changes that would have allowed the paper to buy a television station.

But the committee's report said Rywin acted alone, rather than on behalf of "a group holding power" as Gazeta's editor-in-chief Adam Michnik had said.

Rywin has denied any wrongdoing.

Opposition members of the committee accused Miller's allies of using their majority on the panel to push through a version of the report that let the prime minister and others off the hook.

"This investigative committee ends its work in disgrace," said committee member Jan Rokita.

Rokita and some other members of the panel believe Rywin was sent to ask for the bribe in 2002 by a group that could have involved the then public television chief and Miller's chief political aide, possibly with the prime minister's knowledge.

In a sign of protest against the verdict, committee chairman Tomasz Nalecz said he would not present the panel's report to the whole parliament at a forthcoming session this month.

The scandal, the biggest corruption affair since the 1989 fall of communism, has contributed a dramatic fall in popularity ratings of Miller's social democratic party, which forced the prime minister to announce his resignation.

PM'S RESIGNATION

Miller, who has denied any wrongdoing, has announced he will quit on May 2, a day after Poland joins the European Union.

Former finance minister Marek Belka, prime ministerial candidate, continued meetings with politicians on Monday to try to secure a majority in parliament for a new government.

The bribery scandal erupted in December 2002, when Michnik published a transcript of a secretly recorded conversation, in which Rywin is heard saying he is acting on behalf of "a group holding power".

The film producer has said he was drunk when Michnik recorded their conversation.

Rywin, who also co-produced Roman Polanski's "The Pianist", is separately on trial for soliciting a bribe, and a conviction could put him in jail for for up to three years.

According to the transcript of the taped conversation, Rywin promised changes to a bill that would have barred Gazeta's publisher Agora (AGOD.WA: Quote, Profile, Research) from buying national TV interests.

The government has since dropped the proposed legislation.