Polish security services are treating an emailed threat against Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz as highly likely to be carried out, a government spokesman said Sunday.
Jacek Dobrzyński.PAP/Albert Zawada
Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for the minister coordinator of special services, said the threat arrived by email and was first received by the State Protection Service, which verifies such reports before handing them to the police. Police are now trying to establish who sent it.
“We are talking about a high probability of these threats being carried out”, Dobrzyński told reporters after officials from the police, the protection service and the Internal Security Agency met at the Foreign Intelligence Agency’s headquarters.
Interior Ministry spokeswoman Karolina Gałecka had earlier announced that the services were examining information about a possible attempt on the lives of Tusk and Kosiniak-Kamysz, who is also a deputy prime minister.
Dobrzyński said officials chose to go public to head off speculation. “We decided that we should, through you, inform Poles, society, so that this information does not circulate somewhere like a snowball and there is no speculation”, he said.
He said the case was being taken “deadly seriously” and rejected criticism from commentators who questioned the decision to disclose it. Threats against senior figures are rising “from month to month, from year to year”, he said, and some turn out to be foolish jokes, but this one does not appear to be such a case.
The services agreed their next steps at Sunday’s meeting, he said. Officers are working on the case, and he was confident they would resolve it fully. He promised further details once more is known about the sender.
(jh)
Source: PAP
Radio Poland