Former Polish gov't employee convicted for spying for Russia: official

The spokesman said that the man, identified only as Marek W. under Polish privacy laws, has been sentenced by a regional court in Warsaw after he was detained by Poland’s domestic counterintelligence agency ABW in March last year following an investigation.

“At that time, based on the evidence gathered by the ABW, Marek W. was charged with spying for Russia’s military intelligence service GRU,” spokesman Stanisław Żaryn said in a statement.

He added that, in the course of the trial, the court in March this year found the man “guilty of a crime defined in Article 130 of the Criminal Code, namely taking part in the activities of a foreign intelligence service against the Republic of Poland.”

Żaryn also said that the defendant had been sentenced to three years in prison and banned from holding any public office for a period of 10 years.

“The court also decided that the period when the defendant had been remanded in custody—from March 2018 until the end of the trial—be deducted from the jail term,” Żaryn said.

According to his statement, the sentenced man was formerly employed at the Polish Ministry of the Economy and at the Ministry of Energy.

“As found by the ABW and confirmed by the court’s ruling, during that time he maintained contacts with a GRU officer and provided the Russian side with information on energy security and other information obtained in the course of his employment in the public sector,” Żaryn said.

“He was also complicit in drafting profiles of those employees of the ministries who were of interest to the GRU.”

Poland’s PAP news agency last year cited the National Public Prosecutor's Office as saying that the man had been accused of passing on information to the Russians from 2014 to 2016.

(gs/pk)

Source: Spokesman for Poland’s Special Services Coordinator