“Any potential disclosure of classified information to Mr. Sławomir Cenckiewicz will, in the opinion of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), constitute a gross violation of the law and may also result in criminal liability” – such was the content of a letter received by Sławomir Cenckiewicz following the ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court, which confirmed that the head of the National Security Bureau holds a valid security clearance.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) dismissed cassation appeals filed by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister (KPRM) against rulings of the Voivodeship Administrative Court (WSA), which had overturned the revocation of the security clearance of the current head of the National Security Bureau, Prof. Sławomir Cenckiewicz. According to many commentators, the decision represents a total defeat for representatives of the December 13 coalition.
Shortly after the ruling was announced, the spokesperson for the minister coordinating the special services, Jacek Dobrzyński, spoke out multiple times. In one of his statements, he declared that “any attempt to interpret the NSA ruling as automatically restoring Mr. Cenckiewicz’s access to classified information is completely unfounded” and stated “with full certainty” that “Sławomir Cenckiewicz does not have access to classified information.”
“As I understand it, his superiors, Minister Siemoniak and the Internal Security Agency, were so concerned that the first thing I would do after learning I had won would be to rush to the classified registry and start reading everything immediately. And around 3 p.m., I received a letter from the ABW […] in which, in the first paragraph, I read that today’s rulings definitively close the judicial-administrative stage, but that does not mean that Mr. Cenckiewicz has been granted access to classified information,”
Cenckiewicz quoted in the evening on TV Republika.
As he explained, the remainder of what he described as an absurd letter states that “the services will now proceed to some kind of final and binding determination” as to whether the head of the National Security Bureau provides a guarantee of maintaining confidentiality.
“Now, under a different, non-judicial procedure, a vetting process will be conducted again. I do not know based on what new facts or sources of information this is supposed to be determined,”
he said.
Cenckiewicz added that the letter states that “any potential disclosure of classified information to Mr. Sławomir Cenckiewicz will, in the opinion of the ABW, constitute a gross violation of the law, which may also expose those providing such information to criminal liability.”
“This is not fake. The letter was signed by my ‘favorite’ […] Colonel Jarosław Szafrański, Director of the Department for the Protection of Classified Information at the ABW. The same person who played a certain role, which we discussed during the presidential campaign, in the developments surrounding security clearances and materials from vetting proceedings concerning Karol Nawrocki, the current president. In a way, it is an honor for me that this man has also taken an interest in my modest person,”
he said.