Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has claimed that his wife and daughter were spied upon with the use of the Pegasus spyware on orders of the previous Conservative (PiS) government – but his claim has been cast into doubt by one of his ministers.
The PM’s remarks came in response to a report by Liberal portal Onet that public prosecutors have revealed that Tusk’s daughter, Katarzyna Tusk-Cudna has been granted the status of victim in an investigation involving the use of Pegasus spyware. Both she and Tusk’s wife are to be interviewed as witnesses in the case involving the alleged illegal surveillance of Tusk’s family attorney, Roman Giertych MP.
Pegasus is spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO Group that can be remotely and covertly installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android. Once installed, it can access a wide range of data and functions from the infected device.
“It turns out that PiS were using Pegasus to spy on my wife and daughter. Did the arsonist from Żoliborz also spy on my grandchildren?,” Tusk wrote in a post on X today.
The “arsonist from Żoliborz” was a jibe aimed at the leader of PiS Jarosław Kaczyński who lives in the Żoliborz district of Warsaw. Tusk has accused him of being responsible for hate that he claims led to an attempted arson attack on the ruling Civic Coalition HQ on October 17.
But Tusk’s claim was undermined by Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister responsible for co-ordination of Polish security services.
He told reporters there was no evidence that the phones of either Tusk’s wife or his daughter had been hacked with the use of Pegasus and he confirmed that only their conversations with the PM’s family attorney were listened in to.
Giertych has represented Tusk’s family in several legal cases. He was himself indicted by prosecutors during the lifetime of the PiS government for alleged laundering of funds from a business on behalf of another of his clients after being investigated with the use of Pegasus. That charge was dismissed by a court after the Tusk government-controlled prosecution ceased to contest the case.
Officials from the PiS administration maintain that the investigation of Giertych, regarding the use of Pegasus, was legitimate and sanctioned by a court and that it uncovered alleged wrongdoing leading to an indictment.
One of the PiS officials being pursued by the present Tusk government over the purchase and use of Pegasus is Michał Woś MP.
Yesterday it was revealed he will face trial for “the [alleged] illegal purchase of the Pegasus software” via the misappropriation of public funds. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Pegasus, which cost close to €6 million, was purchased in 2017 by the Justice Fund, a public fund designed to help victims of crime and for crime prevention, for the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA).
Prosecutors allege this was done despite the CBA failing to meet legal criteria to receive such funds.
Woś is accused of “failing to oversee the allocation and accounting of the funds, which prevented proper verification of how the money was spent, resulting in losses to the public finances and deprived intended beneficiaries of the fund”.
The purchase of Pegasus was controversial because it was used against individuals who were in opposition to the then-PiS government. All instances of its use were, though, approved by court judges and related to specific investigations carried out by prosecutors.
Woś, who last year had his parliamentary immunity lifted in order to face charges, has consistently denied the allegations against him.
In a statement after the indictment was announced today, he wrote that the funding for the purchase of Pegasus “was fully legal” and he claimed to be a victim of “political repression”.
“Pegasus was used to fight crime, so no wonder that Tusk and justice minister Waldemar Żurek … are allergic to such a tool, just as criminals dislike the police, criminals of all stripes dislike crime detection tools,” he said.
Woś was defiant that he would act in the same way again.
“If I had to make a decision today to finance equipment for the CBA again, I would do it again,” he stated.
His stance was backed by the head of PiS’ parliamentary caucus Mariusz Błaszczak. He called the indictment “an act of revenge and evidence of the government’s fear of all those who fought corruption and crime”.
Żurek, though, claimed that the development shows there “are no sacred cows, no public officials exempt from responsibility”. He added that his ministry is “restoring the Justice Fund to its original purpose” of supporting “organisations that actually help victims of crime”.
During a hearing in September before a parliamentary commission investigating the use of Pegasus, Woś’ former boss at the justice ministry, Zbigniew Ziobro, admitted he had played a key role in the purchase of the spyware.
“I’m glad I did it and I would do it again,” he said.
Since replacing PiS in power in December 2023, the Tusk government has unleashed a raft of investigations and indictments against former PiS officials for alleged crimes but none of them have as yet led to any convictions.
