BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17/03/2010

Belarusian Mata Hari spied on Poland?

Poland's internal security agency (ABW) says it has evidence that a Belarusian, Olga Solomenik, infiltrated the Union of Poles in Belarus and traveled to Poland to recruit its own security officers to work for Belarusian intelligence.

Olga Solomenik had been a member of the Union of Poles in Belarus, an organization which representatives the 40,000-strong Polish minority in the ex-Soviet state, since 2000.

It is believed that Olga Solomenik was sent to Poland, where she recruited Robert R., the Internal Security Agency's officer from the eastern city of Bialystok, who was in charge of issuing resident cards to foreigners. Polish investigators say from ABW say that they established that the man illegally copied classified documents and forwarded them to Solomenik.

Robert R. was detained on spying charges in February 2008 and faces up to 15 years in prison. His trial began in December last year but all proceeds are classified as "top secret".

Olga Solomenik was recruited to the Union of Poles by its then head Tadeusz Kruczkowski, who was compliant to the wishes of the authoritarian regime of President Lukashenko. Poland's security officials believe that Kruczkowski - who has been denied entry to Poland since the Union of Poles split into two different, pro and anti-Lukashenko groups, in 2005 - is also an agent for the Belarusian KGB.

It is alleged that since 2005, the pro-Lukashenko Polish group has been working to gain intelligence contacts inside Poland.

"We have evidence that the Belarusian KGB used the pro-Lukashenko Union of Poles in Belarus to gather information in Poland, which was later forwarded to the Russia's secret service," a former Internal Security Agency's officer told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

The revelations, should they be true, are embarrassing for Poland's security service. "There's a reason why nobody is talking about this," the former agent tells the newspaper. ABW cares about having good relations with the Belarusian KGB. Officially, we do not have good relations with Belarus, but cooperation with the KGB is necessary for [Poland] to monitor border traffic, as required by the EU. Brussels' priority is to fight against illegal immigrants and contraband entering from the East."

Source:

http://www.thenews.pl/international/artykul127668_belarusian-mata-hari-spied-on-poland.html


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