Poland’s post-Communist security services destroyed the records of numerous prominent public figures who were political police informers under the previous government, said General Czeslaw Kiszczak, their former head.

PAP/Tomasz Gzell. General Czeslaw Kiszczak

“After 1989, whoever approached me about destroying their records, I always destroyed them,” Kiszczak said in an interview for tabloid Super Express. “Everybody’s [records].”

Kiszczak is an army officer who became ran the apparatus of oppression as interior minister during the martial law and throughout the 1980s. He continued in his ministerial position after the 1989 elections, which were partially free and led to the establishment of a Solidarity-led government.

Kiszczak stressed the records he destroyed applied to numerous people who are today, “by no means small fish. These were serious people. Writers, great actors, politicians.”

The former head of Communist political police declined to name any names, saying merely, “I often see them on tv, as they spit venom on me”. (an)