Polish police search for terrorist cell, paper says

Police from Poland's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBS) are searching for a terrorist group sleeper cell that they suspect to be located on the country's Baltic coast, the daily Polska reported Wednesday.

CBS is investigating friends of a Syrian who lived in Gdansk, northern Poland, from the 1990s untl 2001, Polska said. The man was identified only as Michael Z. because his surname was withheld under Polish law.

'We are interested in identifying crimes in the scope of terrorism,' Jerzy Stankiewicz, the head of CBS's Gdansk division, told the daily. Stankiewicz declined to give further details.

Police were led to the Syrian after detaining several other citizens of Arab nations, Polska reported, citing anonymous sources. Police are currently investigating what Micheal Z. did in Poland and are questioning his acquaintances.

Michael Z. claimed he was an architect studying at the Gdansk University of Technology, his friends told the daily. The acquaintances say, however, that he 'had no clue about construction, didn't work and it wasn't really known how he supported himself,' the daily reported.

According to Polska, Michael Z. made several trips to Iran and left Poland suddenly after the terrorist attacks in 2001 on the World Trade Center in New York. Michael Z. took with him a son he had with a Polish wife.

Link