We know why Andrzej Poczobut spent over 5 years in prison. This is a story from 20 years ago

To understand this, however, you need to go back to November 25, 2006, when A Belarusian citizen, Sergei Monicz, who was conducting intelligence activities against Poland, was detained in Lithuania. After being handed over to Poland, he was sentenced in our country to 5.5 years in prison.

Monicz and generous offers from Minsk

It should be added here that in the practice of the services, the rule is that spies are exchanged, but these are not always exchanges of one agent for another. Sometimes political concessions are made in exchange for a person. This practice is intended to reduce the price that collaborators of their own services pay when caught outside their country.

In line with this principle, the Belarusian authorities tried very hard to replace Monicz. The offers made by Minsk were very generous. Unfortunately, I cannot write more on this subject, because at that time I was not a journalist but a diplomat and I served as chargé d'affaires of the Republic of Poland in Belarus. Therefore, I am bound by a state secret. However, I can write, without breaking the secret, that when Poland did not agree to the solutions proposed by the Belarusian side, the then head of the administration of the President of Belarus, who was actually the second man in the country, Vladimir Maciej told me that Belarusians will remember that Poland did not agree to the exchange and will take revenge in due time.

By order of the District Court in Warsaw, Siergiej Monicz was conditionally released from prison on December 28, 2011. We publish the court's decision thanks to the courtesy of investigative journalist Jarosław Jakimczyk, who kindly provided a photo of the court's decision to the Onet editorial office. Sergei Monich spent exactly 1,859 days in prison.

Onet materialOnet

Revenge of Belarus and 1859 days

Andrzej Poczobut, who – let us emphasize very clearly – unlike Monicz, was not a spy, was arrested on March 25, 2021. He regained his freedom on April 28, 2026. He spent… 1,859 days in prison.

Onet asked two former heads of the Polish secret services about this “case”, and – for the sake of objectivity – they came from two completely opposite political camps. Both the former head of the WSI, General Marek Dukaczewski, and the former head of the Intelligence Agency, Colonel Grzegorz Małecki, agreed that The principle of the post-Soviet services is that they never give up revenge, but also that the revenge is carried out in such a precise and even mirror-like way that the other side knows what the revenge is for. In the opinion of both interlocutors, the fact that the Belarusians released Poczobut after exactly as many days of imprisonment as Monicz spent in the Polish prison, can't be a coincidence.

Neither Tusk nor Nawrocki. We know why Lukashenko released Poczobut

This means that neither Karol Nawrocki nor Donald Tusk had any influence on the release of Andrzej Poczobut, but another Pole. It's about Ivan Tertel.

Tertel is the only Polish member of the Belarusian authorities. Unfortunately, he happens to be the head of the KGB.

Another Onet interlocutor, who also comes from Polish intelligence, but who asked to remain anonymous, added that the quarrel between the government and the president over who had greater merit in the release of Poczobutand it can only be a derivative of our Polish-Polish cold civil war.

It may also be a derivative of the fact that the Polish state already has such a “negative institutional memory” that the fact that someone like Monicz existed at all and that the time Poczobut spent in prison is somehow related to the fact that Poland did not decide to replace Monicz ruling [prezydent i rząd] they can learn from the Onet article.

What's worse, Americans may also be aware of the state's institutional amnesia, and that's why they will, as long as possible, “tell us fairy tales that they are behind the release of Andrzej Poczobut, while he was simply supposed to serve 1,859 days.”