Polish deputy PM faces sex claims

Mr Lepper has said he is the victim of a smear campaign

Polish prosecutors are investigating claims that Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper employed a woman on condition that she had sex with him.

A former local councillor for Mr Lepper's Self Defence party made the claim in the Gazeta Wyborcza paper.

Mr Lepper denies he had sex with the woman and says her claim is "insane".

The BBC's Adam Easton says the scandal will embarrass Polish PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski, elected last year promising a "moral revolution".

Mr Lepper is Poland's agriculture minister as well as one of four deputy prime ministers.

His party briefly left the governing coalition earlier this year after Prime Minister Kaczynski accused it of "squabbling".

Its re-admittance in October enabled Mr Kaczynski's Law and Justice party to avoid calling an early election.

'Smear campaign'

A spokesman for Janusz Kaczmarek, Poland's chief prosecutor, said an investigation had been opened into alleged sexual abuse.

The charge carries a maximum prison term of eight years.

Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland's leading daily newspapers, published the claims against Mr Lepper on its front page on Monday.

According to the paper, Mr Lepper invited the woman to a hotel room in the Polish parliament complex five years ago, after she was promised a job in a regional party office.

The woman says Mr Lepper made it clear the job was hers if she agreed to have sex with him.

She says she accepted the offer because, as the single mother of two children, she needed the money.

The woman says she was also required to have sex with a local party official, and other female employees also faced harassment.

Mr Lepper has denied the claims and says he is the victim of a campaign to discredit him and the governing coalition.

"I had no sexual relations with this woman. I want this to be clarified immediately by prosecutors," he said.