Polish Institute Brands Dissident Walesa as a Communist-Era Spy

Lech Walesa, the country’s most famous politician and freedom fighter, was a paid secret informant of Poland’s communist-era secret services, according to a national institute that has been investigating the matter.

The country’s former president signed 17 documents that confirm he took money for providing information to communist authorities between January 1971 and June 1974, Andrzej Pozorski, the head of the National Remembrance Institute’s investigative division, told a news briefing on Tuesday. Walesa, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the icon of the Solidarity movement, rejected the accusations and said the signatures were forgeries by communist officials aimed at discrediting him.