POLISH EDITOR SAYS HE WAS 'MANIPULATED' IN RYWINGATE.

"Gazeta Wyborcza" Editor in Chief Adam Michnik on 22 October told the parliamentary commission investigating the so-called Rywingate bribery scandal that he "allowed [myself] to be manipulated" in the scandal, Polish Television reported. Michnik was commenting on the information from the commission that on 16 July 2002, a day after Lew Rywin allegedly solicited a bribe from Agora (the publisher of "Gazeta Wyborcza"), the government was scheduled to discuss a media-law amendment that was favorable to Agora. According to the commission, Michnik's call to Premier Leszek Miller on 15 July 2002 asking the latter to postpone the discussion of the amendment (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 22 October 2003) prompted the removal of the amendment from the government's agenda. Michnik did not say whom he is suspecting of the manipulation, but he noted that his call to Miller was prompted by a request from then-Deputy Culture Minister Aleksandra Jakubowska that Agora or Michnik suggest postponing the discussion on the amendment to Miller. Some Polish media have speculated that Jakubowska might have belonged to the "group in power" to which film producer Rywin referred when allegedly soliciting a bribe from Agora.

Link