MOSCOW (Sputnik) – A state body responsible for researching Soviet-era crimes, the National Remembrance Institute (IPN), released a batch of documents earlier in the day claiming to shed light on Walesa’s past as secret service informant in 1970-1976.
"These documents must be stored and transferred to serious historians in quiet times. To some extent they will simplify an objective and honest depiction of recent history," former interior minister Czeslaw Kiszczak, who died in November 2015, reportedly wrote in a 1996 letter to state archives.
Walesa, who rejects the accusations, was assigned the codename "Bolek" and was paid for his services to the country’s Communist authorities, according to IPN. Later, he actively campaigned against the regime and served as president of the Polish state from 1990 to 1995.
The documents were reportedly seized on February 16 from Kizczak’s widow based on a law on vital historic documents.
Kiszczak requested that his dossier on Walesa would be published no earlier than five years after the 72-year-old former president’s death so as not to compromise him and his Solidarity movement.
In response to the dossier’s release, Walesa wrote "Thank you, you have betrayed me, not I – you" in his personal blog.
