Opposition MP charged over alleged crimes when minister in former PiS government

An opposition MP has been charged with alleged crimes committed while serving in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government. Michał Woś, however, not only denies wrongdoing but argues that the charges are invalid because they were brought by illegitimately appointed prosecutors.

Woś on Tuesday appeared at the National Prosecutor’s Office in connection with his role in alleged abuses relating to the purchase of Pegasus spyware using justice ministry funds in 2017, when he was a deputy justice minister. Woś also later served as environment minister.

Afterwards, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office announced that the politician had been charged with exceeding his authority and failing to fulfil his obligations, crimes that could carry a prison sentence of up to ten years. He was also placed under police supervision.

The charges were made possible after Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition – which replaced PiS in power at the end of last year – voted to strip Woś of parliamentary immunity in June following a request from Adam Bodnar, who serves as prosecutor general and justice minister.

The case relates to a decision made in 2017 to transfer 25 million zloty (€5.8 million) from a justice ministry fund to the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) to finance the purchase of Pegasus, a type of powerful Israel-made spyware that allows the harvesting of data from mobile devices.

Bodnar said that those funds were transferred despite “it being known that the [CBA] did not meet the conditions for obtaining such financial support” and Woś therefore failed to fulfil his duties regarding managing public funds.

In April, Bodnar revealed that hundreds of people had been surveilled using Pegasus during PiS’s time in power. Some of those targets were prominent opponents of the government, including the manager of the opposition’s election campaign in 2019.

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After emerging from the prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, Woś said that he rejected the actions of “illegally appointed” prosecutors who are “occupying the building of the National Prosecutor’s Office” and “do not have the power under the law to make any charges or conduct proceedings”.

In January this year, Bodnar removed and replaced the then national prosecutor, arguing that he had been illegitimately appointed under the PiS government in 2022. PiS and many senior prosecutors appointed under its rule rejected Bodnar’s actions as illegal and refused to recognise the new national prosecutor.

Speaking on Tuesday, Woś said that he had not violated any laws and was “proud” that he had provided the CBA with a crime-fighting tool like Pegasus, reports broadcaster TVN. The attempt to charge him “is just politics” and part of attempts by Tusk to “destroy the opposition”, he added.

Under the measures introduced against him by prosecutors yesterday, Woś must report to a police station twice a month, is obliged to inform the authorities of any departure from the country, and is banned from contact with dozens of witnesses and suspects in the case.

Investigations launched under the Tusk administration have identified a number of alleged abuses in relation to the use of justice ministry funds during PiS’s time in power.

As well as the purchase of Pegasus, money was also allegedly used for political purposes to reward allies and support the election campaigns of PiS-linked politicians.

In July, parliament stripped another PiS-era deputy justice minister, Marcin Romanowski, of immunity to face charges in relation to the disbursement of funds.

Prosecutors then sought to detain and charge Romanowski, but it emerged that he may also be protected by immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Main image credit: Ministerstwo Sprawiedliwości (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.