The officer was dismissed “in the important interest of the force,” Białystok police said in a statement on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the 29-year-old was detained for three months along with a 24-year-old acquaintance, on suspicion of unauthorised use of radio-stop signals to stop trains, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The regional court in Białystok approved the detention after judging that the evidence collected by prosecutors suggested the suspects were highly likely to have committed the crimes.
The unauthorised use of the radio-stop signal took place in the northeastern Podlaskie region on Sunday, halting trains near the town of Łapy in the morning, and then twice on the Sokółka-Szepietowo line around noon, according to officials.
Hours later, police detained two men, aged 24 and 29, in Białystok, on suspicion of using shortwave radio transmitters to transmit a signal that launches a security brake on the railway, the PAP news agency reported.
The National Public Prosecutor's Office said that, by "transmitting the radio-stop signal in an unauthorised way," the suspects “created a situation designed to suggest the existence of a threat to the life or health of many people or large-scale property,” which "prompted public agencies to action," and also “created a direct danger of a traffic disaster,” charges that together carrt a prison sentence of between six months and eight years.
One of the suspects is the police officer dismissed from the force on Wednesday, the PAP news agency reported. He had been working at the regional police headquarters in Białystok, in a department tasked with covert surveillance of means of transport, among other duties, it said.
Adrian Furgalski, a railway expert, told PAP that Poland’s system of emergency train stoppages “hasn’t been modernised in 50 years” and "still functions in an analog format rather than digitally," making it easy for users of shortwave radio transmitters to stop trains.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, infosecurity24.pl