Wałęsa 'Bolek' files published
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
22.02.2016 08:37
Poland's Institute of National Remembrance on Monday made available files reportedly containing evidence of former president Lech Wałęsa having been an informant of the communist secret police in the 1970s.
Former Polish president Lech Walesa denied fresh claims that he was a communist-era informant, but admitted making a mistake. Photo: EPA/MIGUEL GUTIERREZ
The files were recently seized in the home of the late communist interior minister general Czesław Kiszczak.
They allegedly contained a personal file and a work file of the secret collaborator codenamed Bolek referring to Lech Wałęsa, the former numbering 183 pages and the latter 576 pages.
On Friday, Lech Wałęsa admitted that he had “made a mistake”, but denied that he was ever a paid secret agent who collaborated with the communist regime.
According to earlier publications by several historians, Wałęsa broke off cooperation with the communist secret services several years before the August 1980 strike in the Gdańsk Shipyard and the birth of Solidarity, with Wałęsa as its chairman.
Between 1990 and 1995, Wałęsa served as Polish President. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. (mk/rg)