Defense Minister enters NATO counterintelligence building

The press reported that in order to get in, some doors were broken while others were opened with a copied key. "The entry was peaceful," Bartłomiej Misiewicz, a ministry official told reporters. Misiewicz said that the ousted head, Krzysztof Dusza, had failed to act on a dismissal order last week. “Polish staff members working for NATO's counterintelligence center have lost access to classified information and had to be replaced,” Foreign Affairs Minister Witold Waszczykowski said on Friday. The defense ministry appointed Robert Bala as the acting director of the center. He was also among the staff that raided the office on Friday. “It’s probably the first time in NATO’s history that an alliance member has attacked a NATO facility,” said former Defense Minister, Tomasz Siemoniak. Centres of Excellence (COEs) are nationally or multi-nationally founded institutions that train and educate leaders and specialists from NATO member and partner countries. COEs are not part of the NATO Command Structure and NATO does not directly fund them. However, the overall responsibility for COE coordination and utilisation within NATO lies with Allied Command Transformation (ACT). The COE in Warsaw is run jointly by Poland and Slovakia.