Officer of the secret police in communist Poland Edward Graczyk has denied that he ever recruited legendary Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as a secret collaborator.

He also denies paying Walesa for information on his colleagues from the Gdansk Shipyard in 1970s, as has been alleged.

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Slawomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk, the authors of the book Secret services and Lech Walesa. A Contribution to the Biography, which was published by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) this summer, point to Graczyk as the agent who was directly responsible for recruiting the former Polish democratic opposition leader, 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner and president as a collaborator under the nickname “Bolek”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Graczyk writes that “all conversations with Lech Walesa were interrogations during which he was put under pressure suitable for this kind of examination.”

“I never received from Lech Walesa any declaration of co-operation with the secret services of the People’s Republic of Poland. During our conversations, or interrogations, we never discussed recruiting him as a secret collaborator either,” the statement reads. “I categorically deny the claim that I was the person who recruited Lech Walesa,” Graczyk stressed.

Graczyk writes also that according to his operational knowledge, no other employee of the secret services ever managed to achieve Walesa’s consent or declaration of collaboration.

“Lech Walesa neither personally, with his own hand, nor in any other way ever confirmed receiving from me any financial funds, as he never received any,” writes Graczyk.

In the book Secret services and Lech Walesa. A Contribution to the Biography the authors wrote that Graczyk was dead. When it was revealed that the officer is actually still alive, Cenckiewicz said that the information on his death came from the Vetting Court, set up by the historians employers, the National Institute for Remembrance.

Walesa featured as "Bolek" in 1992 on the so-called Macierewicz's List of secret collaborators with the Communist regime in Poland. In 2002 the Vetting Court ruled that the former president was not, in fact, a secret agent for the communists.

Lech Walesa himself claims that the secret services might have forged documents against him to discredit him after his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. (jm) (photo: Jakub Szymczuk)