Former Polish justice minister taken by police from plane to testify before spyware investigation

Sep 30, 2025 | Law, Politics

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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.

Former Polish justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro was on Monday forcibly brought by police from a plane at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport to testify before a parliamentary commission investigating the use of Pegasus spyware by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government.

The commission had previously been trying unsuccessfully for over a year to make Ziobro appear. However, he had refused to attend, arguing that the body was illegally formed and also citing his treatment for cancer.

During a heated, almost eight-hour-long appearance before the commission on Monday, Ziobro confirmed that he had played a key role in the purchase of Pegasus and said he was “proud” of that fact, given that it was used to tackle crime.

The current government, however, argues that Pegasus was used by PiS to spy on its political opponents and prosecutors believe that its purchase in 2017 was carried out illegally.

Earlier this month, the district court in Warsaw ordered that Ziobro be detained and brought before the commission after he had repeatedly failed to comply with earlier summonses.

On Monday morning, police were pictured arriving at Ziobro’s home to execute the court order. They were seen ringing the doorbell but without any answer.

Ziobro himself then announced that he was in Brussels, where he has been recovering from cancer surgery. But he said that he would be returning to Poland on a flight landing in Warsaw around 10 a.m. – half an hour before his hearing was due to begin.

When he landed, police were waiting to detain him, taking Ziobro directly off the plane as it sat on the tarmac. He was seen telling them that their actions were unlawful.

After he was brought before the commission, Ziobro reiterated his position that it was illegally formed, citing a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) – a body stacked with PiS-era judges – to that effect.

The current ruling coalition does not recognise the TK’s legitimacy due to the fact that it contains judges unlawfully appointed when PiS was in power.

During his subsequent testimony, Ziobro confirmed that he had been one of the initiators of the purchase of Pegasus when he was serving as justice minister and prosecutor general in the former PiS government.

“I’m glad I did it, and I would do it again,” said Ziobro, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “I decided that the state should have a tool to crack the smartphones of people who commit crimes and pose a real threat to the state.”

 

Pegasus is a powerful spyware tool produced by Israeli firm NSO Group and which can be used to penetrate and surveil mobile phones. Human rights groups have raised concern that Pegasus has been used by authoritarian governments to spy on political opponents.

In the case of Poland, an investigation last year by the current government found that Pegasus was deployed against nearly 600 individuals between 2017 and 2022, when PiS was in power, including political opponents of the ruling party.

During his testimony on Monday, however, Ziobro claimed that the tool was used against suspected criminals and terrorists. That included investigating “massive corruption by a man who was a close associate of [current Prime Minister] Donald Tusk”, said Ziobro.

That was a reference to the case of Sławomir Nowak, a former minister in a previous Tusk government, who was detained by anticorruption officers in 2020. He went on trial last year, accused of accepting bribes, but denies the charges.

In response to Ziobro’s testimony, one of the members of the commission, Tomasz Trela, an MP from Tusk’s ruling coalition, said that it would be used to formulate a motion to prosecutors to determine whether Ziobro had committed a crime.

Trela was referring in particular to Ziobro’s admission that he played a key role in the purchase of Pegasus, which prosecutors believe was carried out illegally. Last year, one of Ziobro’s former deputy justice ministers, Michał Woś, was charged for his role in overseeing the purchase.

In January this year, police also detained Ziobro and brought him to testify before the commission. However, because he arrived late for the hearing, he was not questioned and the commission instead requested that he be detained for 30 days. That request was later rejected by a court.


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: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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