Anti-Soviet hero Walesa ‘spied for the Communists’

FORMER Polish president Lech Walesa, who helped free his country from Communism, was paid to spy for the Soviet Union in the 1970s, newly uncovered papers suggest.

A file taken from the home of a Communist-era interior minister contains ‘a collaboration agreement’ signed by Mr Walesa, it was claimed yesterday.

But Mr Walesa, 72, pictured, has insisted the papers are fake – and vowed to clear his name. ‘There exist no documents coming from me,’ he said, adding: ‘I will prove that in court.’ The document was apparently found among posessions seized from the late General Czeslaw Kiszczak. They were taken by the Institute of National Remembrance, a body which prosecutes Communist-era crimes.

Mr Walesa, who in 2000 was cleared by a court of being a Soviet spy, led the workers’ movement Solidarity from 1980, and became an icon of Eastern Europe’s struggle against Communism.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, he became Poland’s first democratically elected president and won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize.

Yesterday historian Antoni Dudek said Mr Walesa’s legacy should only be affected if he is proved to have been an informant while leading the fight against Communism.

He added: ‘Nothing can destroy this, unless we learn he continued to collaborate.’