Senior Polish defense official detained for ‘spying for Russia’
October 16, 2014 Leave a comment
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A high-ranking official in Poland’s Ministry of National Defense has reportedly been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia. Poland’s Dziennik Gazeta Prawna said early on Wednesday that a man had been detained by Polish security personnel because it was thought he had been acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. Another source, Poland’s commercial news Radio Zet, reported that two men had been arrested, a colonel in the Polish Army and a lawyer with dual Polish-Russian citizenship. Later in the day, an official statement from the office of the Senior Military Prosecutor said simply that Poland’s “Ministry of National Defense detained a Polish Army officer on suspicion of being a member of a foreign intelligence service”. But it made no mention of the country for which the detained officer allegedly spied for. A spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Lieut. Col. Janusz Wojcik, said he could not disclose any details at the moment, adding only that the arrests were based on evidence complied by the counterintelligence service of the Polish Army. Another Polish official, Lieut. Col. Paul Durka, said the arrests had been coordinated by Poland’s Military Police and the Polish Army’s Internal Security Agency (ABW). But Polish media alleged that the defense official was apprehended for spying for Russia and suggested that his arrest was carried out in dramatic fashion by ABW forces inside the headquarters of the Ministry of National Defense, centrally located on Polish capital Warsaw’s Independence Avenue. This claim, which was later confirmed by ABW spokesman Lieut. Col. Maciej Karczyński, likely signifies that the spy suspect was captured in the act of espionage, following an extensive surveillance operation. Relations between Poland and Russia have been tense since the end of the Cold War, with several intelligence-related incidents making news headlines. In early 2010, the Polish government announced the arrest of a Russian resident of Warsaw, who was accused of working as a non-official-cover operative for Russia’s Main Intelligence Directory (GRU). Later that year, Polish media claimed that Stefan Zielonka, a senior SIGINT officer with Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW), who disappeared without trace in early May of 2009, had defected to Russia. Read more of this post
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Poles who ‘spied for Russia’ worked on strategic natural gas project
October 20, 2014 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment
At least one of the two men arrested in Poland last week for spying for a “foreign entity” was working on a project of strategic significance, aimed at reducing Poland’s dependency on Russian natural gas. Polish media reported last Wednesday that a colonel in the Polish Army had been arrested by security personnel for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country. Subsequent media reports said a second man, a lawyer with dual Polish-Russian citizenship, had also been arrested. Later in the day, an official statement from the office of the Senior Military Prosecutor said simply that Poland’s Ministry of National Defense had “detained a Polish Army officer on suspicion of being a member of a foreign intelligence service”. But there was no mention of the country for which the detained men allegedly spied for. This past Saturday, Reuters revealed that the two men were suspected of spying for Russia. The news agency cited Marek Biernacki, a Polish parliamentarian, who is also a member of the Polish Parliament’s Committee on Intelligence and had allegedly been briefed by Polish intelligence officials about last week’s arrests. Biernacki told journalists that the actions relating to the two detainees had been “taken in respect of two agents of the Russian state”. In accordance with Polish law, the public prosecutor named the civilian detainee as Stanislaw Sz., using only his first name and the first two letters of his last name. Reuters said the man had been employed at the well-connected law firm of Stopczyk & Mikulski, whose website listed him until recently as an employee. Stanislaw Sz. was allegedly involved in a project to construct a coastal terminal in Swinoujscie, located on Poland’s Baltic Sea coast, for importing liquefied natural gas. The import terminal, which is scheduled to become operational in 2015, will allow Poland to import gas from the Persian Gulf. That will in turn reduce the country’s heavy dependence on imported Russian natural gas at a time when Warsaw’s relations with Moscow continue to deteriorate. Reuters said that the precise nature and timing of Stanislaw Sz.’s involvement with the Swinoujscie terminal is unclear, but it characterized the project as being of strategic importance for both Poland and Russia. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with counterintelligence, energy resources, espionage, Janusz Piechocinski, Marek Biernacki, News, Poland, Polish Ministry of National Defense, Russia, Stanislaw Sz., Swinoujscie (Poland)