Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz has conducted a change of guard at a NATO training center in Warsaw.

Macierewicz had earlier appointed Colonel Robert Bala to the post of acting chief of NATO's Counterintelligence Center of Excellence (CEK), the Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Thursday night.

Defense Ministry officials accompanied by military police entered the centre after midnight on Friday.

Local press reported that staff close to Macierewicz as well as members of the military police, “broke doors” to get into the centre at around 1:30 am CET, although these reports have not been confirmed.

When contacted by Radio Poland on Friday, a NATO official who asked not to be named said that the centre in Warsaw is not “directly operated by NATO” and that it is jointly run by military and civilian personnel from Poland and Slovakia.

The official could not immediately confirm the events that took place overnight.

Change of guard

“Polish staff members working for the centre have lost access to classified information and had to be replaced,” Foreign Affairs Minister Witold Waszczykowski said on Friday.

"In cases concerning changes in the military, such decisions are taken with immediate effect," Waszczykowski added.

Former Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, from the opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, condemned the move, saying, “This is probably the first time in NATO’s history that an alliance member has attacked a NATO facility.” (rg/aba/pk)