THE Polish Prime Minister, Mr Jozef Oleksy, fighting off allegations that he spied for Moscow, has acknowledged that he made a mistake in keeping close personal contacts with a Russian agent.
Speaking on Polish television on Wednesday, Mr Oleksy reiterated, however, that the contacts did not involve spying and that he was innocent. He had earlier accused Poland's secret services of a "dirty provocation" and fabricating evidence that he was a foreign intelligence informant.
The Prime Minister indirectly admitted in the interview that his friendship with Mr Vladimir Alganov, a Moscow diplomat and an intelligence officer in Warsaw in 1981-92, was very close and involved joint hunting trips.
Mr Alganov, at a news conference organised on Tuesday by Russian intelligence in Moscow, said the evidence against his "friend" was fabricated and the Prime Minister had been "of no interest to the Soviet Union".
Mr Oleksy, a former senior communist official, and his co ruling Democratic Left Alliance of reformed communists have accused President Lech Walesa and his allies of using the case for political revenge.
Mr Walesa was defeated in the November presidential elections by another former communist, Mr Aleksander Kwasniewski, a close associate of Mr Oleksy.
Allegations against Mr Oleksy, made in parliament by an ally of the former president, Mr Andrzej Milezanowski, await a decision by prosecutors on whether to start an investigation.
A special parliamentary committee has already questioned Mr Oleksy and Mr Milczanowski as well as secret service officials, who firmly denied that they had fabricated the case.
The counterintelligence chief, Mr Konstanty Miodowicz, said yesterday he had resigned after being questioned by the committee.
A senior member of the committee, Mr Ryszard Bugaj of the leftist Union of Labour, said yesterday be saw no evidence that the secret services could be accused of wrongdoing.
The case is a major embarrassment for Mr Oleksy, Mr Kwasniewski and their excommunist party, posing the question of how well they have managed to put communist era ties with Moscow behind them.
"There is no doubt that the Prime Minister had long standing and close contacts with a KGB officer, which in political terms is compromising and unforgivable," the Gazeta Wyhorcza daily quoted Solidarity Senator Krzysztof Kozlowski as saying.
Mr Kozlowski, the first non communist interior minister after Solidarity took power in 1989, said Mr Oleksy should resign.