POLAND:Three months after losing office, Poland's Law and Justice Party (PiS) faces serious allegations of abuse of power, including illegal phone taps and unauthorised copying of intelligence service files.
The head of Poland's intelligence service (SKW) has claimed that large numbers of top-secret files were copied in the final months of the PiS administration and moved without permission to the offices of President Lech Kaczynski.
"I have submitted hundreds of pages of depositions from functionaries regarding the illegal copying of extremely secret documents and operational evidence, lists of mission code names and lists of persons that work with the service," Gen Grzegorz Reszka told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.
According to depositions of SKW officials, the copying procedure began in September and went on until November, after the election victory of prime minister Donald Tusk, political rival of Mr Kaczynski.
As well as paper copies of operational dossiers, computer records reportedly show that files were copied to unregistered hard drives and removed from restricted areas.
A spokesman for PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the Polish president, denied the allegations yesterday.
The PiS-led government took office in 2005 promising to dismantle the post-communist military intelligence service (WSI), which, along with its archive, survived almost untouched the transition to democracy after 1989.
A special commission was set up to analyse WSI officials and activities and disband the organisation. A final report, published a year ago, was hugely controversial for naming as spies several Polish ambassadors.
But yesterday's allegations that departing PiS officials helped themselves to intelligence files risks undermining the party's mission to dismantle what it sees as surviving networks of ex-communists in Poland.
Experts warned yesterday that the allegations, if proven, would place Polish secret service personnel and missions at risk and could damage Poland's credibility as a Nato partner.
"This is an incredibly dangerous situation," said Marek Dukaczewski, a former WSI head, to Gazeta Wyborcza. "Words cannot describe it: scandal is not strong enough." Jaroslaw Kurski, chief commentator of Gazeta Wyborcza said it was a "shameless" attempt by PiS to retain power in opposition and regain power as soon as possible.
"We soon learned the methods of PiS: arrests in the spotlight, phone taps, provocation . . . all aimed at political opponents while their own people were spared," said Mr Kurski. "This is a reminder of their black methods."
The file scandal is just one strand of a wider abuse of power investigation into the former government. A key figure is former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro who spearheaded the administration's battle against corruption.
He faces an official inquiry into widespread use of phone taps without judicial approval.
The investigation has been hampered by the fact that Mr Ziobrio's official laptop has been destroyed - apparently after being driven over by a car.
"Every day it's a new scandal involving the old government," said Prof Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, head of the Institute for Public Affairs (ISP) in Warsaw.
"But the current government cannot wait to act if secret material was tapped from the central nerve of our security machine."