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Poland Suspends Honorary Consul in US Over Photo


FILE - European Council President Donald Tusk speaks with the media at the Europa building in Brussels, Belgium, April 29, 2017. He was allegedly depicted as an SS officer in an altered photo posted on Facebook by now suspended Polish honorary consul in Akron, Ohio, Maria Szonert-Binienda.
FILE - European Council President Donald Tusk speaks with the media at the Europa building in Brussels, Belgium, April 29, 2017. He was allegedly depicted as an SS officer in an altered photo posted on Facebook by now suspended Polish honorary consul in Akron, Ohio, Maria Szonert-Binienda.

Poland's Foreign Ministry has suspended an honorary consul in the United States who allegedly posted on Facebook an altered picture of European Council President Donald Tusk dressed as a Nazi.

Maria Szonert-Binienda headed Poland’s honorary consulate in Akron, Ohio. She denies the charges.

Szonert-Binienda told the Associated Press someone hacked her Facebook account.

"I did not make a photo of Donald Tusk as an SS man. I am against promoting SS symbols and ideologies. I am against using words like 'fascism' in the public political discourse today. I am against comparing our politicians to Hitler," she said.

Tusk is a former Polish prime minister.

Szonert-Binienda's husband is a member of the ruling conservative government commission that is re-investigating the 2010 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw, is leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party, and a fierce political rival of Tusk.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski had accused Tusk of leading an incomplete investigation into the crash.

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