"Olina" affair. Russian provocation or conspiracy of Polish services?

On the long list of events which shook the 3rd Republic this is Absolutely special. True. Accusations of Agenthood towards Russia have been on the agenda in fresh years, but it is hard not to get the impression that this is just an excruciated rhetorical phrase, the usage of which does not origin any real consequences.

It was completely different 30 years ago erstwhile the incumbent Minister for the Interior Andrzej Milczanowski, charged the Sejm grand jury with spying on his formal boss, Prime Minister Joseph Oleksi. Formal, due to the fact that as a consequence of the over-interpretation of the then in force tiny constitution, the president Lech Wałęsa led to the fact that in subsequent governments – regardless of the coalitions forming them – he led the MON, MFA And the Home Office was his representative.

"Olina" affair. Genesis

The full crisis occurred at a peculiar moment, as it occurred at month after Lech Wales lost second circular of presidential election and on the eve of the transfer of office Aleksandr Kwasniewski, which meant at the same time the end of the Milchanowski ministerial mission.

Yeah. Fear of concealing the full case, the head of the MMA justified the filing of a study in fresh days suspicions of the Prime Minister to the D.A.'s office.

By informing you of this on 21 December 1995, the Council adopted Decisions (EU) 2015/190 [2] and (EU) 2015/994 [3] appointing the members and alternate members of the Committee of the Regions for the period from 21 December 2015 to 21 December 2020. Mr Milchanowski stated in Sejm‘Józef Oleksy maintained contacts with abroad intelligence officers from 1982 or 1983 until 1995 According to the information available, in 1990-95 Mr. Józef Oleksy had many meetings with abroad intelligence officers, during which he knowingly transmitted information and documents, including classified ones. The State Protection Office has besides received information that you Józef Oleksy was registered as a qualified origin of information, in the secret peculiar meaning of the records of abroad intelligence, including its codename.’

Mr Milczanowski stressed that on 4 September 1994 the head of the UOP, General Gromosław Czepinski, informed Oleksy, who was then the talker of the Sejm, that "One of the people he's in contact with is simply a abroad intelligence officer.. Nevertheless, after September 4, 1994, further contacts with abroad service officers were obtained."

Prime Minister Oleksy categorically dismissed the allegations of espionage, calling it provocation and accusing Milchanowski that a group of peculiar services officers operating under his protection fabricated evidence of his alleged cooperation. This was to be confirmed by the award of 4 officers of the State safety Office active in the investigation against Oleks, who on the day of the speech of Milczanowski in the Sejm They were promoted to general by the president.

Former Deputy Minister for the Interior Henry Jasik, Head of the UOP Investigative Board Victor Fonfara, Head of the Intelligence Board Bogdan Libera and Marian Zacharskiwho is then the advisor to the head of the UOP. 3 of them worked before 1989 in the Department of the IMA (in charge of the interview), while Fonfara was then an officer of the Bureau of Investigation of the MMA.

Oleksy later claimed that These people were convinced that Walęsa would be re-electedand accusations against the Prime Minister To make it easier for the president to break up the government coalition SLD–PSL. In turn, the fact that Milchanowski made allegations despite the failure of Wałęsa was to consequence from a desire for revenge.

After the triumph of Wałęsa in the 1990 presidential election, in the UOP Intelligence Board environment, which was then almost exclusively created by officers of the erstwhile Department I, there was indeed a political division. Most of them continued to sympathize with the post-communist camp, however, any began to focus on the Presidential Palace, looking at the fresh patron in Wales. But why would they prepare papers concerning Joseph Oleks?, since the president's main problem at the end of his word was the increasing popularity of SLD leader Alexander Kwasniewski?

The conspiracy version, despite the investigation initiated in this case and the actions of the Sejm commission investigating the activities of UOP officers, was never confirmed. 2005 Oleksy brought a private indictment to court. against the said officers (and 2 another lower ranks), but rather rapidly withdrew him from court. On the another hand, he faced the second from the prosecution's accusation of revealing State secrecy in the Sejm himself Milchanowski, but after a five-year trial, he was yet acquitted in 2010. The effort to bring him to the Court of State besides ended in fiasco. Silentianowski, who died last year, for the remainder of his life he maintained the view that suspicions towards the head of government were justified.

Nor did the existence of the alleged conspiracy prove Special Sejm Committee chaired by Ms PSL Lucy Pietrzyk, operating throughout 1996, although her focus was on establishing whether Minister Milczanowski and his subordinate officers had broken the law. The Commission interviewed 46 people, and respective of its meetings were held at the UOP office so that its members could question both certain operational officers and Watch top secret documents.

In its report, the committee stated that The initiator of the prosecution against the Prime Minister was Marian Zacharski. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zacharski's supervisor was accused of materials concerning Oleksy "not sufficiently verified in terms of substantive veracity"which was to lead to the creation of "a procedurally defective request to initiate an investigation".

Although the committee – dominated by SLD and PSL politicians – formulated, contrary to the opinions of opposition MPs, the assessment that UOP officials had broken the law, They were never brought to justice. He was regarded as the main perpetrator, Marian Zacharski, as he himself mentioned, encouraged by the fresh MMA leadership from leaving Poland, but He's never been charged.. However, at the same time in UOP – whose fresh boss was replaced by Czempiński Andrzej Kapkowski – extended personnel changes were made, removing not only officers active in the investigation against the Prime Minister.

"Olina" affair. Russian provocation?

Marian Zacharski before leaving Poland He made extended statements to the D.A.. They showed that in June 1995 he obtained from a Russian diplomat and a spy Grigorija Jakmishina, first information on Oleksy. It was to be a origin codenamed “Olin‘. They corresponded with the message obtained 3 years earlier from another origin that Russian intelligence has a advanced ranking in the Polish state apparatus informant, from among activists PZPR.

The first officer leading Oleksi was to be Vladimir AlganovZacharski knew personally. Therefore, he shortly thereafter attempted to confirm this message, during an allegedly accidental gathering with Alganov in Majorca. But he refused, though Zacharski interpreted their conversation in specified a way that “Alganov indirectly confirmed any of the elements of our investigation‘. This was to be demonstrated by his careless phrase, “Who betrayed?”

Not long after that, Jakeiszin, at his next gathering with Zacharski, brought and allowed to copy a four-page note, a origin codenamed ‘O’. She said From the beginning of 1991 to March 1992, “O” provided information and various documents18 timesbut at the same time they were not meant to represent besides much value. This was in practice only evidence of the origin of Russian intelligence code name ‘Olin’, which he gained from UOP, due to the fact that shortly after, Jakimiszin informed about the beginning of control at the embassy and refused further cooperation for which he received a full of around $30,000. Zacharski felt that this was the consequence of an alert by Alganov office in Moscow.

Following disclosure of the full case, early January 1996, Alganov appeared in Moscow At a press conference. He stated on it that His relation with Oleksy was purely social., and during the gathering with Zacharski in Majorca, the second was to be threatened that the people of the UOP would not let all power to be taken over in Poland by post-communists.

During this time Warsaw There was no more Jakmishina, but despite the disclosure in Polish media of his identity, as sources of Zacharski, He was expected to have no consequences.. respective years later, he was scheduled to appear as a juror in the espionage trial, suggesting that he could inactive work for the secret services. This information made the hypothesis that The full case was a Russian provocation, and its main nonsubjective is to compromise Polish efforts for membership NATOwhich then entered a decisive phase.

This hypothesis has already appeared in the study of the interior Commission set up in the UOP in April 1996, accusing the officers handling the case "insufficient consideration of the Russian threat of provocation or inspiration‘.

Oleksy initially refused to resign.. He did this only on January 24, 1996, erstwhile the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Warsaw Military territory initiated an investigation into his alleged espionage. However, admitted to maintaining friendly relations with Vladimir Alganov for a number of years, who for respective years was his neighbour on the property in Wilanów.

In his evidence in the prosecutor’s office, he said: “During his relation with Alganov I've been receiving occasional gifts from him., very rarely, in the form of alcohol, sauerkraut and Borzhomi water. I firmly declare that I have never made any material or papers available to anyone not authorized to do so.. Alganov never expected or asked for any documents. I besides exclude the anticipation that Alganov would have the chance to enter into possession of my papers without my knowledge.”

A fewer years later, on the occasion of Oleksi's mirroring process, it turned out that in the 1970s it was trained for the needs of the Agentural Operations Intelligence (a military intelligence structure PRL) which made his acquaintance with Alganov peculiarly ambiguous.

In turn, the 2007 disclosure. recordings of Oleksy's conversation with businessman Alexander Gudzowaty, in which the erstwhile Prime Minister discussed details of the individual life and property state of leading SLD politicians, let themselves to gain an thought of what his social encounters with Alganov might have looked like. "As for Oleks, everyone We know how he likes to party, including those he shouldn't have.But from this to spying is the way from here to Washington” he wrote in his memories. Leszek Miller, defending in this rather peculiar way a politician, with whom after the election of Kwasniewski as president he powerfully competed for leadership in the post-communist camp.

The investigation of the Military Prosecutor's Office was taking place in an expressive, unimaginable pace today. and it ended in April 1996 with the dismissal of the case by the prosecutor of Płk Sławomir Gorzkiewicz. In the justification of this decision Gorzkiewicz he accused Zachary of bias and Milchanowski of violating the rules State secrecy.

A fewer days after leaving the post of Prime Minister, and so even before the completion of his investigation, Oleksy was elected as Kwasniewski the fresh president of the Socialemocracy of the Republic of Poland, which reflected the solidarity of the post-communist camp with 1 of its leaders. In 2004, he became briefly Deputy Prime MinisterAnd then again, the Marshal of the Sejm.

So the full affair ended according to the dominant rule in Polish public life: very dense allegations have not been proven, but numerous questions and doubts remain. And they cannot be settled definitively without looking into the contents of the archives of the Russian peculiar Services.

Antoni Dudek

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