A court on Monday sentenced a university lecturer accused of planning to blow up the Polish parliament to 13 years in jail.

Dr Brunon Kwiecień, the first Pole to be accused of terrorism, admitted to planning an attack but claimed he had been encouraged by an agent working for Poland's Internal Security Agency (ABW) in a sting operation.

A district court in Kraków, southern Poland, sentenced Kwiecień for planning a terrorist attack on a Polish state institution in 2012, for inciting two students to carry out an attack, for illegal possession of firearms and for trade in firearms.

Kwiecień, who worked at the Kraków Agricultural University, had allegedly planned to ram a vehicle packed with explosives into Poland's lower house of parliament when both the president, then Bronisław Komorowski, and the prime minister, at the time Donald Tusk, were expected to be present.

“We are dealing with a person who considered, planned, and was able to carry out an attack on the highest state authorities,” prosecutor Mariusz Krason argued while summing up the case. (pk)