Head of Poland’s anti-corruption agency resigns after stonewalling Pegasus spyware investigation

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The head of Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), Agnieszka Kwiatkowska-Gurdak, has submitted her resignation to Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

While no official reason has been given, her decision came after criticism of her refusal to answer questions during an appearance before a parliamentary commission investigating the use of Pegasus spyware under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Kwiatkowska-Gurdak was herself an appointee of the current government. She was named as acting head of the CBA by Tusk on 19 December 2023, just days after he had himself been sworn in as the new prime minister. She then took the position on a permanent basis in March 2024.

However, this week reports emerged that Tusk and others in his ruling coalition had been angered by Kwiatkowska-Gurdak’s appearance on Tuesday before the Pegasus investigation commission.

During a four-hour hearing, she repeatedly refused to answer questions about Pegasus, citing legal constraints on revealing confidential information, despite the fact that the prime minister had signed a waiver releasing her from the requirement to maintain secrecy.

Speaking anonymously to news website Interia, an MP from Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) accused Kwiatkowska-Gurdak of “making deals with PiS people” to protect those implicated in the Pegasus scandal.

In 2017, under the former PiS government, the justice ministry transferred 25 million zloty (€6 million) to the CBA to purchase Pegasus, powerful Israel-made spyware that allows the harvesting of data from mobile devices.

Subsequently, according to an investigation carried out under the current government, hundreds of people were targeted for surveillance with Pegasus during PiS’s time in power. Among them were opponents of PiS, including the head of KO’s election campaign in 2019.

Since Tusk’s coalition came to power in 2023, it has promised to hold to account former officials for alleged abuses in the use of Pegasus. Last year, a former PiS deputy justice minister was stripped of immunity to face charges over his role in the initial purchase of the spyware.

PiS, however, has denied that any wrongdoing took place. It says that Pegasus was used only as part of legitimate investigations and that its use was always approved by courts. It has also argued that the parliamentary commission investigating Pegasus is itself unlawfully established.

Tusk last year announced plans to completely abolish the CBA, which he said had become politicised and ineffective during the previous eight years of PiS rule. His government wants to replace it with a new institution, the Central Bureau for Combating Corruption (CBZK).

A draft act to that effect was approved by the government in December but it has yet to be voted on by parliament and faces potential veto by PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda, whose current and final term in office runs until August this year.

Meanwhile, the latest version of Transparency International’s annual Corruptions Perceptions Index, published this week, showed that in 2024 Poland fell to its lowest ever position of 53rd.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Kancelaria Premiera/X

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.