Polish prosecutors have filed a new indictment against far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun over a series of incidents including the theft of a Ukrainian flag, the burning of an EU flag and the destruction of an LGBTQ+ exhibition inside parliament. The indictment also includes a defamation charge over Braun’s remarks about a campaign commemorating the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Piotr Antoni Skiba, spokesman for the Warsaw District Prosecutor's Office, said on Wednesday. Braun, a firebrand who heads the opposition ultranationalist Confederation of the Polish Crown party, is known for his anti-EU, anti-Ukrainian and antisemitic rhetoric, and has repeatedly faced legal trouble over his actions and public statements. The European Parliament has several times lifted Braun's immunity from prosecution, most recently in September over allegations that he denied the Nazis had carried out the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Flag burned The latest indictment covers four incidents in 2025, when Braun was campaigning in Poland's presidential election. During a rally in the eastern city of Biała Podlaska in April, one of his associates removed a Ukrainian flag from the city hall building. Braun thanked the man and publicly took responsibility, telling supporters that he had acted on his explicit instructions. Days later, Braun removed an EU flag from the then-Ministry of Industry building in the southern city of Katowice, threw it onto the floor, trampled it and wiped his shoes on it. He later burned the flag near the historic Wujek coal mine. Both flag incidents are being prosecuted as aggravated theft, an offense punishable by between six months and eight years in prison. In another incident in June, Braun tore down an exhibition inside the Polish parliament building dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, damaging 10 display panels. Destruction of property carries a possible prison sentence of up to five years. Holocaust remembrance row Braun also faces a defamation charge over remarks made during a presidential debate in April 2025, when he described the daffodil, a symbol used to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as a “symbol of disgrace and submission.” Prosecutors said his remarks defamed the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and other organizers of the annual Daffodils campaign, which encourages people to wear the flowers in remembrance of the uprising's victims and fighters. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on April 19, 1943, when Jewish fighters took up arms against Nazi German forces that were deporting the remaining inhabitants of the ghetto to extermination camps. It is considered the largest act of armed Jewish resistance during World War II and the first major urban uprising against German occupation in Europe. The defamation charge carries a possible prison sentence of up to one year. Ongoing trial Braun is already standing trial in Warsaw over an earlier indictment following an incident in December 2023 when he used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles during a ceremony in the Polish parliament. Prosecutor's Office spokesman Skiba said hearings scheduled for October 30 and November 6 were canceled after Braun submitted a medical certificate indicating he had health problems. Prosecutors have asked the court to verify the certificate after video footage showed Braun spending several hours at a demonstration outside Poland's Constitutional Tribunal on Friday evening, Skiba said. The Tribunal, Poland's highest court, is at the heart of a confrontation between centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-EU government and nationalist President Karol Nawrocki. Critics say the court and other judicial appointments were heavily politicized under the previous right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government. Braun has served in the European Parliament since 2024. He finished fourth in Poland’s 2025 presidential election, in what was viewed as a surprisingly strong result for the provocative politician.
