Lepper was sober when he took his life
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
05.01.2012 12:04
A District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw has revealed that there were no traces of alcohol or illegal narcotics in the blood of former Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper, who committed suicide on 5 August 2011.
The investigation into the precise circumstances of Mr Lepper's death has already lasted five months.
Andrzej Lepper was the leader of the populist, agrarian Self Defence party, which lost all of its parliamentary seats in the 2007 general election amid a series of scandals.
The recent blood tests did however reveal that traces of a pharmaceutical drug were present in Mr Lepper's system.
These “did not exceed” the normal dose according Monika Lewandowska, a spokesperson for the prosecutor, in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Lewandowska said that owing to a request from Mr Lepper's family, the office will not reveal the type of the medicine.
The body of Andrzej Lepper was discovered at the Warsaw office of his party on the afternoon of Friday 5 August 2011.
Mr Lepper's son-in-law found the body in a bathroom, hanging from a rope attached to a punch-bag (the politician was a boxer in his youth).
Within days of the death, details of the politician's financial problems emerged in the press – he had extensive debts.
It was revealed that there was no money for petrol or machinery to cope with the year's harvest at the Leppers' farm.
The former Deputy Prime Minister, who served between 2006 and 2007 in the Law and Justice (PiS) coalition government, had also been plagued by a sex scandal which ultimately saw his colleague Stanislaw Lyzwinski imprisoned on multiple charges, including rape.
In March 2011 an Appeal Court in Lodz, central Poland, had granted Andrzej Lepper a retrial over the matter of allegedly trying to procure sex from a female in return for a job.
The investigation into the politician's death continues. (nh)
Source: PAP