WARSAW, Poland -- Embattled Jan Parys, who once said there was a plot to overthrow democracy in Poland, has resigned, the Polish news agency PAP said Monday.
Prime Minister Jan Olszewski accepted the resignation during a meeting in which Parys said he felt he could not continue in light of the findings of a parliamentary commission last week that concluded he should resign because his allegations to be 'unjustified and harmful to state interests.'
Parys said in view of the fact the commission indicated that the Defence Ministry should be subordinate to the National Security Bureau which is supervised by the president, he felt he could no longer perform his duties, government spokesman Marcin Gugulski said.
Parys told Olszewski he believed the parliamentary ruling had no basis in the Polish law.
The minister has been the center of the hottest of many controversies engulfing the shaky government of Prime Minister Jan Olszewski and President Lech Walesa.
Walesa demanded Parys' resignation after he charged on April 6 before a group of generals that unnamed politicians -- some later identified by the news media as being connected with Walesa -- were approaching military officers to 'overthrow democracy with the aid of the army.'
Olszewski immediately ordered Parys to take an enforced vacation, but refused to fire him outright pending a government investigation, whose conclusions were similar to those of the parliamentary commission.
The constitution and Polish law are vague about the national security responsibilities of the president, who is commander-in-chief, the Defense Ministry, Parliament, and other government agencies.
