Warsaw official accused of spying for Russia to face trial

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Polish prosecutors have filed an indictment against a former employee of Warsaw city hall, who is accused of spying for Russia and abusing his position as a public official working in the capital’s civil registry archives.

The man, who can only be identified as Tomasz L. under Polish privacy law, allegedly used his access to the archives to copy documents that enabled the creation of false identities for undercover Russian agents, a role described by Polish intelligence officers as “invaluable to Russia”.

Because his actions took place before Poland tightened its espionage laws in 2023, he faces between three and 15 years in prison for working with a foreign intelligence service, instead of a life sentence. He could also receive up to three years in prison for abuse of power as a public official.

Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) said in a statement that the suspect was accused of “passing on information to [the Russian] intelligence service which could have caused damage to the Republic of Poland”.

According to prosecutors, Tomasz L. collaborated with Russia between 2017 and March 2022, when he was detained by ABW agents. Prosecutors then requested his temporary detention, which was approved and extended multiple times, most recently until March 2026.

“The indictment was filed with the Regional Court in Warsaw on 11 September 2025,” Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for Poland’s security services, said on Thursday.

While working at Warsaw city hall, Tomasz L. had access to several archives, including the Civil Registry Office Archive, which stores birth, marriage and death records; the Main Archive of Old Records, which preserves historically significant documents; and the State Archive of the Capital City of Warsaw, which contains administrative and legal files, among other materials.

Prosecutors say evidence shows that Tomasz L. copied official documents onto private storage devices and photographed them with his mobile phone. The materials included civil status records of Polish citizens and foreigners, correspondence with diplomatic missions, official templates, guidelines and other sensitive data.

His actions, investigators said, posed a serious threat to the security of Poland.

“The data and documents obtained enabled, among other things, foreign intelligence services to produce legalisation documents used to establish the identities of so-called non-official cover (NOC) agents,” said National Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Przemysław Nowak in a statement.

A NOC agent is a full-time intelligence officer who operates in deep cover using false documents and has no official ties to diplomatic missions.

Investigators believe Tomasz L. sent the stolen material to Russian officers via “camouflaged radio communication”, in which he was previously trained by the Russian intelligence service.

Polish intelligence officers told Rzeczpospolita that it was unclear how many Russian deep-cover agents may have been created this way, but described his role as “invaluable to Russia”.

According to the newspaper, investigators found that Tomasz L. copied hundreds of birth, marriage and death certificates from a special archive holding parish registers from former Polish territories which are now part of Ukraine and Belarus.

Those records could have been used by Russian agents to pose as descendants of displaced Poles and obtain Polish residency or citizenship.

Tomasz L. has not admitted guilt. “At the initial stage of the investigation, he gave a statement. During subsequent interrogations, he exercised his right to refuse to give further explanations,” Nowak said.

An investigation by private broadcaster TVN24 following his arrest revealed that in 2006, Tomasz L. served on the liquidation commission of the former Military Information Services (WSI), Poland’s pre-2006 military intelligence and counterintelligence agency. That commission was chaired by Sławomir Cenckiewicz, now head of the National Security Bureau, an advisory body to President Karol Nawrocki.

Following the TVN24 report, Cenckiewicz told reporters that Tomasz L. had been appointed by then-defence minister Radosław Sikorski, who is currently Poland’s foreign minister. Sikorski, in turn, said the decision was made by Antoni Macierewicz.

TVN24 also reported that Tomasz L. was part of a small group of associates of Macierewicz, who himself was charged last month with disclosing classified information, and that this group had access to sensitive data, including lists of informants and agents and details of funding for top-secret operations carried out in Poland and abroad.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Mister No/wikimedia.org (under CC BY 3.0)

Alicja Ptak

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