Poland’s NATO ambassador should not have received security clearance, says Tusk

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has claimed that Tomasz Szatkowski, who served as Poland’s ambassador to NATO until this year, was suspected by the intelligence services of various offences, including improper handling of classified documents, contact with foreign security services, and obtaining unauthorised financial benefits.

The claims come after Tusk’s government moved earlier this year to remove Szatkowski – who was appointed under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government – from his position. Those efforts were resisted by PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda.

Szatkowski yesterday rejected Tusk’s claims against him as “obviously untrue” and has threatened to sue the prime minister. Duda has also continued to back Szatkowski, whom he appointed as a presidential advisor earlier this month.

Tusk outlined the allegations against Szatkowski during a speech in parliament on Friday. He said that the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) had expressed a number of suspicions regarding Szatkowski as far back as 2019, when he was nominated as ambassador.

“According to the findings of the SKW, Szatkowski was accused of improper handling of classified documents, contacts with foreign secret services, obtaining unauthorised financial benefits, as well as relying on suggestions and inspirations from foreign companies when drawing up important state documents directly relating to state security,” said Tusk.

The prime minister added that the SKW had not informed the Internal Security Agency (ABW), which is in charge of granting security clearances, about these findings.

If the ABW had received the SKW investigation results, it would have had to initiate an investigation and Szatkowski would then have lost his security clearance and the ability to serve as ambassador. Instead, the ABW, unaware of the allegations, issued Szatkowski with security clearance in 2019 and 2022.

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Tusk said that both he and Duda had been informed of these concerns at the beginning of May this year, which was when the government tried to recall Szatkowski from his position.

However, Duda refused to sign off on the appointment of the government-nominated candidate, Jacek Najder, accusing Tusk’s cabinet of violating procedures and endangering Poland’s preparation for a NATO summit that was held this week in Washington.

Initially, the government did not communicate why it had sought to dismiss Szatkowski. Yesterday, Tusk said that he was now revealing the details because the NATO summit had finished.

Tusk called on Duda and the former PiS authorities to explain why, despite such concerns about Szatkowski, they had continued to allow him to serve and had publicly defended him. Before being appointed ambassador to NATO in 2019, Szatkowski served for four years as a deputy defence minister in the PiS government.

After Tusk’s announced yesterday, Duda told broadcaster Polsat that he had doubts as to “whether the prime minister was telling the truth”.

“I expect this matter to be cleared up. So far it is one big set of slanders for me. This case is really very strange,” added the president. “Szatkowski remains my advisor.”

Szatkowski himself also issued a statement to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) in which he rejected the “false and manipulated accusations” and announced plans to sue the prime minister for his “slanders”.

“Tusk’s accusations are based on the content of anonymous denunciations and other manipulated information, which have been verified as untrue by the SKW at my request,” wrote Szatkowski, who is also suing newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza for its reports claiming he failed a polygraph test.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Tomasz Siemoniak, who serves as interior minister and coordinator of the security services, confirmed that Szatkowski’s access to classified information has been suspended following a decision by the ABW to launch an investigation into him.

“The examination of this case has been ongoing since last Wednesday,” said Siemoniak, quoted by state broadcaster TVP. “This is a proceeding that automatically suspends access to classified information.”

Main image credit: NATO/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.