Saturday, February 10, 2007

DNA test clears Polish deputy PM in sex row

A DNA test has cleared Poland's deputy prime minister of allegations that he was the father of a party official's child, Polish media reported on Saturday quoting prosecutors.

Andrzej Lepper, leader of the left-wing Self-Defence party, had been asked to take a paternity test as part on an investigations into allegations that he and a party associate recruited female workers in exchange for sex.

Deputy Prosecutor-General Jerzy Engelking told the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza the DNA test confirmed on Friday that Lepper was not the father of the daughter of Aneta Krawczyk, a former Self-Defence councillor who is the chief witness in the case.

Krawczyk had previously alleged that Lepper associate Stanislaw Lyzwinski was the father of her child. Lyzwinski was also cleared by a DNA test, but has since been charged with other offences in the case.

"Aneta Krawczyk's credibility is now in great doubt," Gazeta Wyborcza quoted Engelking as saying.

Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose three-party coalition depends on Self-Defence and the nationalist League of Polish Families for its slim parliamentary majority, had said he would sack Lepper if he were charged in the case.

Lepper has denied the allegations and Poland's chief prosecutor said last month there were no grounds to charge him or request his parliamentary immunity be lifted.
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