Gov't official demands correction from national daily

The head of the Prime Minister's Office has demanded a correction by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza of articles it wrote covering a cyber-attack on his private e-mail account.

Michał Dworczyk took exception to three articles published by Wyborcza, one of Poland’s leading newspapers, that contested the government’s claims that the cyber-attack was conducted from Russian territory, and alleged that an associate of Dworczyk may have been responsible.

The three articles published by the daily last week were headlined: 'No cyber-attack from Russia,' 'Someone within Dworczyk's circle is responsible for the mail leak,' and 'The state on private e-mail accounts.'

"In connection with a number of false reports presented by Gazeta Wyborcza, I have demanded a correction of the published information," Dworczyk wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

He said that the daily had published a false report, not based on facts, according to which, the Internal Security Agency (ABW) had not confirmed a cyber-attack and someone within his circle had been responsible for the mail leak.

"The evidence collected by ABW and the Military Counterintelligence Service clearly show that the cyber-attack had originated from the territory of Russia," Dworczyk wrote. "Both its scale and range are broad and concern Polish top officials, ministers and MPs from various political groupings," he added.

Having repeated that the articles contained false and misleading information, Dworczyk said that he had been questioned by a prosecutor's office and that an investigation into the incident had been launched.

The Prime Minister's Office head has demanded an immediate correction, to be published by the daily for five days on its www.wyborcza.pl portal.