Bogdan Gasiński

Other allegations by Gasiński are related to 9/11 perpetrators. and Skowroński's partner in Afghanistan-related business ventures ) confirmed one part of Gasiński's widely ridiculed claims in his 2014 book—he said that Afghan militants indeed visited Klewki, and that they were only Ahmad Shah Massoud's mujahideen—he dismissed other claims made by Gasiński, and a 2005 book published on the subject, as crazy. and animal cruelty.

Chronology

Gasiński was one of three directors of Inter Commerce for the Masuria region. He claimed two other directors fled because they did not want anything to do with Inter Commerce's real field of activity. He says that personnel in Inter Commerce was regularly replaced, and that he himself was kept as an employee for years only because he agreed to "collaborate" (suggesting involvement with an intelligence agency, organized crime, or both). By his own account, in February 2001 Gasiński tried to withdraw from the company's activities, asking for a reassignment to some other location. Gasiński says he abandoned his post in Klewki after being threatened in April 2001.

It is not clear what Gasiński was doing in the following months, in the middle of 2001. There are reports he was jailed for some reason in Jelenia Góra. and that the gang distributed Skowroński's drugs in Poland and abroad ). Lepper, who was a vice-marshal of the House and the leader of the Samoobrona political party, which had just become a major political power, publicly made these allegations (plus allegations against two other politicians) during a session of the House. A major scandal broke out. Gasiński was thrust into the spotlight. Lepper was sued by the politicians whom he accused, and in 2005 the court ruled in their favor, sentencing Lepper for slander.

Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik, Wprost and Polityka covered at least some of Gasiński's claims and kept writing about his legal problems even years later, but considered his claims unreliable or laughable.

Gasiński was then arrested in January 2002, After returning, he met with Wiernikowska again (it was then when he implied to Wiernikowska that he had been working for Israeli intelligence the whole time ) and also publicly retracted all his original claims, both in the public prosecutor's office and in an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza (spring 2002).

After this retraction, several things happened: Gasiński was sentenced to two and a half year in prison for defrauding Skowroński's Inter Commerce, while not present in court (June 2002); a top mob boss and a policeman were murdered in a shooting in Mikołajki (August 2002)—as Gasiński later claimed, this mob execution took place in front of his eyes; That was despite Skowroński's previous characterization of Gasiński as an unimportant, self-aggrandizing farm worker and a thief. While Gasiński was staying in Skowroński's house, letters, supposedly written by Gasiński and expressing solidarity with bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, were being sent.

Gasiński made a report of crime to a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn at least twice (not necessarily to the same office); and at least two times it was ignored. At least one letter, containing a report of crime, was sent by Gasiński to a prosecutor's office from jail. (unless Gasiński was released immediately after filing the October 28 report of crime). It is not known is both reports of crime contained the same information.

Lepper says that Gasiński made a report of crime to a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn (either personally or by mail) on September 19. Head of a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn told the press that Gasiński came forward with his report, containing the anthrax accusations, "in September I think".

The importance of the timing of Gasiński's anthrax claims—whether it was in September or in October—is that although the anthrax letters were allegedly sent on September 18 (just a day after the Polish media published information about people affiliated with bin Laden's organization buying anthrax in the Czech Republic), the American press did not report on the anthrax letters before Robert Stevens' admission to a hospital (and his death) in October.

Anthrax

Gasiński wrote to the DA's office - and maintained that it is the truth in his conversation with Maria Wiernikowska - that experiments were being secretly performed on cattle at Skowroński's ranch in Klewki. According to him, this included experimentation with E. coli and anthrax. He said cows were injected with what was supposed to be vaccines, coming from the Czech Republic and Israel, and mortality among the cattle was high. Gasiński said he was ordered to take milk samples from the cows, and these samples were shipped to a laboratory in Warsaw. He said the experimentation started in the summer of 2000, after two Afghan citizens, who arrived in a helicopter with Skowroński, were given a tour of the cowshed, and that Skowroński specifically claimed their visit was related to plans to test vaccines and build a lab.

However, Skowroński was still portrayed in the media as a legitimate businessman; he did not deny links to Afghanistan, but portrayed himself as a friend of Ahmad Shah Massoud and denied any wrongdoing.

Wiernikowska lost her job as a result of her continued interest in the subject. She later published a book entitled Zwariowałam (I went mad) in which she chronicled her investigation. A multitude of names in the book are censored (blacked out), even Skowroński's name, but not the name of Aleksander Makowski, a former spy from the People's Republic of Poland era who later continued intelligence work for WSI. Aleksander Makowski was an employee at Inter Commerce.

The book was published in 2005.

Outcome

Rudolf Skowroński has been missing since 2005. He left a fortune in Poland (equivalent to about $37 million). In 2018, Polish Radio published information that Skowroński, who had been sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment in his youth, became a police collaborator later, and in the 1980s he was reporting to Departament I of the Polish Ministry of the Interior. Aleksander Makowski was one of the top officials of Departament I at that time.

Makowski was strongly criticized in a report related to the disbanding of WSI (which he had worked for), and sued the Polish Ministry of Defense because of claims the report contained. Makowski was a subject of two non-fiction books (one written by him and the other being an interview with him) before switching to writing spy fiction. He is still often interviewed by the media.

Out of the three MPs (Lepper, Łyżwiński and Żywiec) to whom Gasiński handed his report in December 2001, the sentence was later overturned, and a new trial was postponed indefinitely for health reasons; not because of physical health (even though Łyżwiński required the use of a wheelchair after his prison stay) but because psychiatrists in a mental hospital, where he was ordered to be involuntarily committed for a period of time by the court, declared him unfit to stand trial. The other two are dead. Lepper died in what was ruled a suicide. Żywiec died in a strange car crash: he entered a car together with four friends as a passenger (one of his friends was driving) and then was found dead a short distance away next to the crashed car, alone. The car keys were never found. The car was cut to pieces as part of the investigation.

Gasiński was sentenced to over 38 years' imprisonment, all for non-violent crimes and he was released in January 2026.