(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
Warsaw: A Polish judge who fled to neighbouring Belarus and reportedly asked for political asylum over spying allegations he denies, had access to classified information, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
Belarus announced on Monday that judge Tomasz Szmydt had crossed into the Moscow-allied state, with whom Poland has tense relations, particularly since the start of the war in Ukraine.
"We have to be aware that the Belarussian services are working with a person who had direct access to the (former) justice minister... and several classified documents that no intelligence service should be able to get their hands on at any cost," Tusk told reporters.
Szmydt was close to Poland's former governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost power to the current pro-European Union coalition late last year.
After he fled to Belarus, prosecutors in Warsaw launched an inquiry into possible espionage against him.
Poland's ABW secret services said separately that they were checking "the extent of the classified information to which the judge had access".
The crime of espionage comes with a sentence of at least eight years in prison.
"Szmydt's ties with the Belarussians go back a long way, (not just) the past few months," Tusk said.
The judge and his ex-wife had taken part in an online campaign attacking judges who spoke out against reforms the PiS had introduced to the Polish legal system.
The EU and Washington said the reforms undermined the independence of Poland's courts.
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