D. Tuskas: the Polish judge who fled to Belarus had access to secret documents – Respublika.lt

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Judge Tomasz Szmydts. Photo of social networks.

Belarus announced on Monday that judge Tomasz Szmydt had moved to its territory.

“We need to know that Belarusian services are working with a person who had direct access to the (former) minister of justice … and several classified documents that no intelligence service should get at any cost,” Tusk told reporters.

Szmydt was close to Poland’s former ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost power late last year to the current pro-European coalition.

After he fled to Belarus, prosecutors in Warsaw opened an investigation against him for possible espionage.

Poland’s secret service, ABW, said separately that it was examining “the extent of classified information that the judge had access to.”

Espionage carries a minimum sentence of eight years in prison.

“Szmydt’s ties with the Belarusians have been going on for a long time, (not just) the last few months,” Tusk said.

The judge and his ex-wife participated in an online campaign attacking judges who spoke out against PiS’s reforms of the Polish legal system.

The EU and Washington said the reforms undermined the independence of Poland’s judiciary.

Action by hostile foreign countries

In a statement published in Russian and Polish on Monday, Szmydt complained that he was being accused of “fabricated” espionage.

He said that the Polish government is “leading the country to war under the influence of the United States and the United Kingdom.”

Relations between Warsaw and Minsk have been strained for several years due to political repression in Belarus and disputes over migrants. They fell to new lows in February 2022 when President Alexander Lukashenko backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Belarusian state news agency “Belta” reported on Monday that T. Szmydt asked A. Lukashenka for asylum.

“This is an act of protest against Poland’s policy towards Belarus and Russia,” Belta quoted T. Szmydt as saying at a press conference in Belarus.

D. Tusk warned on Tuesday that the Belarusian and Russian secret services may target the EU, which includes Poland, before the European Parliament elections in early June.

“The signs of very aggressive action – by foreign services hostile to us in Europe – are getting stronger every day and will continue to get stronger because of the European Parliament elections,” said the centrist leader. “We have to understand that.”

“There is no need to have any illusions about the goal that Moscow and Minsk have set themselves in the coming months,” Tusk said after a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the southern city of Katowice.