WARSAW, Poland — When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, reporters from around the world rushed to the Polish-Ukrainian border to cover an exodus of refugees fleeing Russian bombs.
Among them was Pablo González, a freelance journalist from Spain who had been based in Poland since 2019, working for Spanish news agency EFE, Voice of America and other outlets. Warsaw-based reporters knew him as an outgoing colleague who liked to drink beer and sing karaoke into the wee hours of the morning.
Two and a half years later, he was sent to Moscow as part of a prisoner swap, leaving behind both mysteries about who he really was and concerns about how Poland handled a case in which he was accused of being a Russian agent.
In the first days of the war, González provided stand-up reports to TV viewers in Spain against a backdrop of refugees arriving at the train station in the Polish border town of Przemysl.
But less than week into the war, Polish security agents entered the room he was staying in and arrested him. They accused him of “participating in foreign intelligence activities against Poland” and said he was an agent of the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
Friends were astonished — and, as Poland held González without trial for months that turned into years, some grew skeptical and organized protests in Spain demanding his release. Authorities have never detailed the accusations.
But on Thursday evening, the burly…
