The late Bronislaw Geremek, one of the towering figures of the Solidarity movement and a former foreign minister, has been labelled a collaborator with the communist security services by the ultra-conservative Nasz Dziennik newspaper.

The paper claims that according to documents from the state-sponsored Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Geremek was listed as a secret informer during the 1960s.

Bronislaw Geremek died in a car crash in July 2008.

Nasz Dziennik did not miss the opportunity to point out that in 2007, Geremek was a vehement opponent of the so-called lustracja process championed by the Kaczynski government, in which leading public servants were required to clarify whether they had at some time cooperated with the security services. Geremek himself, an MEP in 2007, declined to make his declaration.

However, the alleged revelations are ambiguous. It is common knowledge that Geremek was a member of the communist party since 1950, becoming undersecretary of the Basic Party Organisation (POP) at Warsaw University.

Geremek left the party in protest following the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces in 1968. This appears to tally with the fact that according to IPN documents, Geremek was removed from the register of informers in 5 February 1969. (nh)