Poland’s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro MP was escorted by police to be questioned at a parliamentary commission inquiry.
The commission is investigating the use of Israeli-made Pegasus spyware under the previous Conservative (PiS) government. Ziobro told members the software played a key part in revealing alleged corruption by two politicians close to the current Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The parliamentary inquiry is examining whether the surveillance software was used by State authorities under the then-PiS-led government to monitor political opponents, activists and journalists as well as probing who authorised its purchase and how it was deployed.
Ziobro, the justice minister between 2015 and 2023, was detained by police at Warsaw Airport on arrival from a flight from Brussels, where his wife works, having informed the authorities that he would be arriving on that flight.
Officers then took Ziobro to appear at the hearing of the parliamentary committee, at which he had failed to appear eight times before, leading to a court order for him to be brought before the panel.
Ziobro told the police at the airport that his detention was illegal, citing the constitutional court’s (TK) ruling that the parliamentary investigative committee was illegal. The current government does not accept that along with all other TK judgments because it views the court as not being properly constituted.
The former justice minister had been detained to appear before the committee back in January but the committee refused to wait for him after police detained him. On previous occasions, Ziobro had produced medical certificates for non-attendance as he had been undergoing treatment for cancer.
At the latest parliamentary hearing he admitted he had “approved the decision to purchase the Pegasus spyware which was used, with authorisation from the courts, in hundreds of investigations”.
He denied there was anything inappropriate in the purchase being made by the Justice Fund, a State fund primarily dedicated to assisting victims of crimes. “The fund was also dedicated to helping those leaving prison and to preventing crime,” he said.
Ziobro revealed Pegasus was used to uncover alleged corruption involving two politicians close to the current Prime Minister Donald Tusk: Roman Giertych MP and the former transport minister Sławomir Nowak.
Giertych, who is the Tusk family’s attorney, was investigated for alleged money laundering worth millions of euros for a company he was working with.
He left the country for several years after he was interviewed by investigators but was elected as an MP in 2023 when Tusk’s government came to power, after which the investigation against him was shelved.
Nowak was probed on suspicion of allegedly eliciting and taking bribes as well as being involved in organising a group engaged in influence peddling for cash, brought to the notice of Polish investigators by Ukrainian secret services.
When questioned on the use of the spyware to investigate two other politicians from Tusk’s party, MEP Czarnecki Ryszard and MP Krzysztof Brejza, who were not charged with any crime, Ziobro said he had “nothing to hide”. He urged the ruling coalition to” reveal all the files relating to that investigation to the public” and urged the ruling majority to lift the immunity of Brejza so that he could be indicted.
Ziobro also warned members of the parliamentary committee that “in future, his and their roles may be reversed” and pledged that there would have to be an investigation against members of the committee for ignoring the constitutional court’s ruling against them.
The pro-Tusk government committee members hit back by threatening to file for an indictment against Ziobro for having allegedly illegally purchased the Pegasus spyware.
