Former Polish President Admits to CIA Torture Site

Polish Ex-Officials Spent Years Trying to Cover Up Facts

There are plenty of nations out there that played a role in the CIA torture prison system worldwide, and a lot of them are looking awfully guilty after years of trying to cover up their involvement.

Poland is a prime example, as the new summary details things that the EU already basically knew: that the CIA operated a torture prison with the permission of the Polish government on the site of a spy training academy.

Years of probes by current Polish officials and the EU revealed a lot about the site, including documents authorizing its establishment. The then-Interior Minister is already being charged over it. Yet it was only today, with the report in everyone’s hands, that Poland’s former President Aleksander Kwasniewski admitted publicly to the site.

Kwasniewski was light on the details, but said the secret prison was never supposed to be used for torture and that “activity was stopped at some point.”

His admission at least shows that the torture prison’s existence was a fact that went all the way to the top of Poland’s government, and while other officials have long denied any knowledge it is now a confirmed fact. More prosecutions may be coming.

Other nations didn’t have near the backlog of investigations related to their own hosted torture dungeons that Poland did, but everyone involved is ending up with at the very least egg on their face, and in some cases may face the sort of legal repercussions as accomplices that the CIA itself will clearly escape.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.