Leszek Miller

The Polish Secret Service briefed both president Aleksander Kwaśniewski and PM Leszek Miller about the existence of a CIA black site on the grounds of a Secret Service training camp, Gazeta Wyborcza reports. The agents kept notes on these meetings, and eventually handed them over to the prosecutor late last year.

On the 30th of March, Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza published a fateful article that ultimately led to a criminal investigation. It detailed a document commissioned by Warsaw prosecutor Jerzy Mierzewski, who was then in charge of the investigation into alleged US detention facilities on Polish soil. He had asked external experts for advice on a variety of legal matters. After the external evaluation arrived, Mierzewski was removed from the investigation. Gazeta Wyborcza obtained the 50 page document by unknown means and published extracts from it. As a consequence of this publication, the newspaper itself became the focus of a criminal investigation.

This move came shortly after lawyers acting on behalf of a Guantanamo detainee filed a complaint against Poland at the European Court of Human Rights, and shortly before President Obama's visit to Poland.

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza article, Mierzewski had planned to file charges of breach of the constitution, false imprisonment and assistance in crimes against humanity, and had asked for advice, amongst other things, on the following matters:

- Does international law cover the operations of detention centers for people who are suspected of being terrorists?
- Does the legal framework of a country in which such a detention center exists have the power to shut it down?
- Does a confession that a person - who has been suspected of terrorist activity and has been detained - is a member of al Qaida have any influence on their legal status?
- What does it mean for the legal status of this person that he is detained outside a battlefield or an occupied area?

He received the following answers:

- There is no legal framework allowing foreign agencies to open any facilities in Poland which are beyond our control.

Prosecutors in the Northern Polish city of Gdansk have opened an investigation into the leaking of documents to Gazeta Wyborcza, effectively confirming their authenticity. These documents revealed that Jerzy Mierzewski, a Warsaw prosecutor, had planned to file charges of breach of the constitution, false imprisonment and assistance in crimes against humanity in a case surrounding alleged CIA detention and torture facilities in Stare Kiejkuty and rendition flights to and from Szymany airport in Masuria.

Former Polish PM Leszek Miller, who had been named as one of the persons authorizing a cooperation with the CIA by former MEP Józef Pinior, criticized the publication, calling journalists "useful idiots" who "invited al Qaida into the country".

The investigation is carried out in Gdansk (rather than in Warsaw), because it also concerns the dealings of Warsaw prosecutors.

The decision to remove Mierzewski from the case came shortly after lawyers acting for a Guantanamo detainee filed a complaint against Poland at the European Court of Human Rights, and shortly before President Obama visited the country.

For background reading please see this post, which also contains links to a Council of Europe investigation into the role of Poland in CIA rendition flights and international press coverage:

http://wlcentral.org/node/1849

For other WL Central coverage on the topic please see here.

According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Jerzy Mierzewski, the prosecutor investigating alleged CIA prisons on Polish territory, was removed from the case because he had planned to file charges of breach of the constitution, false imprisonment and assistance in crimes against humanity.

This move came shortly after a lawyer acting for a Guantanamo detainee filed a complaint against Poland at the European Court of Human Rights, and a week before President Obama's visit to Poland.

Recent days have seen a number of articles on alleged CIA rendition flights and prisons on Polish territory in the Polish press. These were also prompted by a statement former MEP Józef Pinior made to Gazeta Wyborcza, saying that there is a memorandum signed by former PM Leszek Miller regulating the operations of a planned CIA prison on Polish territory. Miller strongly denies this.

For other WL Central coverage on the topic please see here.