- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Polish FM Suggests Ex-President Walesa ‘Puppet’ Controlled From Abroad

© AFP 2023 / POOL / MARKUS SCHREIBERFormer Polish President Lech Walesa attends the state funeral of the former German President Richard von Weizsaecker at Berlin Cathedral, the protestant church of Berlin on February 11, 2015
Former Polish President Lech Walesa attends the state funeral of the former German President Richard von Weizsaecker at Berlin Cathedral, the protestant church of Berlin on February 11, 2015 - Sputnik International
Subscribe
Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement in the 1980s and the country’s former president, could have been "a puppet" controlled by external forces, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said Friday.

Poland’s former president and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa talks with The Associated Press in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015 - Sputnik International
Poland Ex-President Walesa Denies Working for Communist Secret Services
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On Thursday, Lukasz Kaminski, the head of the National Remembrance Institute (IPN), a state body responsible for researching Soviet-era crimes, told reporters that a batch of recently-discovered documents proved that the 72-year-old ex-president was an informer for secret services between 1970-1976.

"Walesa could have been a controlled puppet, and we need to clarify this," Waszczykowski told the TVN 24 channel.

"I am looking forward to the publication of these documents. I hope that it will undoubtedly shed light on the situation. It concerns not only Walesa, but also reflects the way independent Poland was developing. This case may show that the project of ‘free Poland’ was manageable, and we did not carry out a revolution and did not make sovereign decisions," Waszczykowski stressed.

Walesa was assigned the codename "Bolek" and was paid for his services to the country’s Communist authorities, according to IPN. Later, he actively campaigned against the regime and served as president of the Polish state from 1990 to 1995.

The documents were reportedly seized on Tuesday from the widow of former interior minister Czeslaw Kiszczak, who wanted to sell the papers to IPN. Prosecutors retrieved them the same day due to a law on important historic documents.

Poland’s former president, meanwhile, denied on Thursday having worked as a paid informant for Communist secret services in the 1970s.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала