Indictment targets Polish ex-defence minister and security body chief
Polish prosecutors filed an indictment on Friday against former Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak and current Head of Internal Security Bureau (BBN) Slawomir Cenckiewicz, among other figures, over disclosing Poland’s secret defence plan.
Blaszczak, who served as defence minister under the Law and Justice (PiS) party, was accused of abusing his authority for personal and party gain by declassifying and disclosing fragments of the WARTA-00101 defence plan in 2023.
According to the District Prosecutor's Office, the files also involve Agnieszka Glapiak, head of the National Radio and Television Council, and Piotr Z. (full name withheld in accordance with Polish privacy laws), former director of the Strategy and Defence Planning Department at the defence ministry. The two, along with Cenckiewicz, "played a significant role" in Blaszczak's actions and "facilitated" the commission of the crime, the prosecutors said.
On Friday, Blaszczak took to X to denounce the situation, calling it "an act of Donald Tusk's revenge," in reference to Poland's prime minister.
"This is the price I pay for disclosing the plans of the first rule of PO-PSL (Civic Coalition- Polish People's Party - PAP), which concerned seizing nearly half of Poland without a fight," Blaszczak wrote. "If I were to deal with this dilemma once again, I would without hesitation declassify the documents revealing the true intentions of Tusk's team."
Cenckiewicz also rejected the accusations on Friday on the same platform, claiming that he "never violated the law."
The situation triggered a torrent of comments from the Polish high-profile politicians, including Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and the Government's Spokesperson Adam Szlapka, all voicing their opinions on the X platform on Friday.
"Let it be a warning to all politicians so that none could gamble with Poland's security for party gains," Sikorski wrote.
Szlapka said that revealing such sensitive information is an "action harmful to Poland" which "cannot be defended."
Investigators in the case consider Blaszczak's 2023 actions to have "severely harmed" public and Polish interests.
Blaszczak presented the disclosure during the 2023 election campaign to accuse the then-opposition Civic Platform (PO) of planning to defend Poland along the Vistula, alleging that this strategy would effectively surrender parts of the country. Although the documents he used were stored in the Military Historical Office, they remained subject to statutory protection for classified information.(PAP)
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