2023-12-19 18:52 update: 2023-12-20, 14:58
Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
Donald Tusk, Poland's new prime minister, has announced he has named new heads of the country's security agencies.
The new government, led by Tusk, has vowed to replace state officials nominated by the ex-ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, considered as PiS loyalists, with their own nominees.
Last Friday, Tusk asked President Andrzej Duda to green-light the dismissal of the previous heads of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), the Intelligence Agency (AW), the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) and the Military Intelligence Service (SWW).
Earlier he had received the approval for the dismissals from two bodies, the Council for Special Services and the Parliamentary Committee for Special Services.
On Tuesday, Tusk said that "After a discussion with the Council for Special Services and having sought the opinion of the President of the Republic of Poland, I made a decision, including two decisions at the request of the Minister of National Defence, to dismiss the current heads of the SWW, CBA, ABW, AW and SKW, and today I handed (the appointments - PAP) to the new heads of these services."
He announced that the CBA will be headed now by Agnieszka Kwiatkowska-Gurdak, who has been in service for 19 years. She was formerly a police officer with the Central Investigation Bureau.
ABW will be led by Colonel Rafal Syrysko, who has been in service for 31 years. He worked in the counterintelligence and internal security departments and also as a security representative in the former Office of State Protection (UOP).
Colonel Pawel Szota will be at the helm of AW. In service for 23 years, initially in the UOP, and then as an analyst in the operational department of Foreign Intelligence Agency.
"He knows international issues well, he worked in Washington and London," Tusk said.
General Jaroslaw Strozyk will head the SKW and Colonel Dorota Kawecka will be the chief of SWW.
Kawecka has been with the secret services for exactly 20 years and according to Tusk has "great experience in electronic intelligence, especially important in the era of current challenges." (PAP)
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