Authorities in Poland say former deputy prime minister Andrzej Lepper has been found dead and that it appears he committed suicide. He was 57.

Police say Lepper's body was found in his Warsaw office Friday and that everything indicates he killed himself. A police spokesman is quoted as saying authorities have ruled out the involvement of third parties.

A former pig farmer, Lepper was a member of the populist Self-Defense Party, which became a junior partner in a conservative nationalist government that held power from 2006 until 2007. He served as deputy prime minister and agriculture minister in that government, which was led for most of its short tenure by then-Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Lepper was removed from his posts after he was linked to a corruption investigation.

Last year, Lepper was found guilty of demanding sexual favors from female members of his party and was handed a jail sentence against which he appealed.