Polish spies list leaked on internet

WARSAW - Polish spies may be in danger after a list of names from communist-era files was leaked onto the internet earlier in the week, Prime Minister Marek Belka says.

The directory of 240,000 names includes informers, spies and people questioned by the secret police under communist rule. The archives are held by the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) but the names were copied by a journalist and published.

Speaking after meeting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Belka said on Saturday it was possible that names of working agents were on the list.

"I don't want to be alarmist. On the other hand, I would like to treat with the utmost gravity the possibility of a safety threat to a few or even just one active security agent, especially abroad," Belka told reporters.

Poles have flooded the internet trying to find family members on the list.

But daily paper Trybuna earlier on Saturday scolded the journalist, former anti-communist activist Bronislaw Wildstein, pointing out the potential threat to spies.

"The fun has ended. Polish intelligence officers are in danger ... Operations have been suspended, people withdrawn," it wrote in a front page article headlined "Catastrophe".

Belka said there would be a meeting between the secret services and the IPN to establish the precise threat posed.

- REUTERS