Supreme Audit Office reveals invoices for "purchase of special technology" financed by Justice Ministry fund

In its response to TVN24 "Czarno na Białym" reporters' request for access to public records, the Supreme Audit Office said it "is in possession of two public VAT invoices issued for payment with money from the Justice Fund in the amount of 25 million zlotys to complete an agreement signed on September 29, 2017 (agreement classified) between the MS (Ministry of Justice - edit.) and the CBA". "According to the task completion report, dated Jan. 24, 2018, the money was spent on a task: 'Purchase of special technology for detecting and preventing crime'," NIK said, adding that it was not specified exactly what sort of "special technology" had been bought.

"According to NIK, funds from the Justice Fund could not have been transferred to the CBA, because pursuant to Art. 4 Par. 1 of the Act on the Central Anticorruption Bureau from June 9, 2006, the CBA operations can only be financed with funds from the state budget, and money from a state earmarked fund are is not this kind of funding," NIK added.

Robert Zieliński, tvnwarszawa.pl reporter, was the first to inform in September 2018 about the purchase of a surveillance system and the NIK having documents confirming this purchase.

"Czarno na Białym" reporter Piotr Świerczek commented on the invoices in TVN24 on Friday. "It all really began with a tweet by Marian Banaś (NIK chief - edit.), who said already in December, after first reports regarding public figures were under surveillance with the help of this software, that this issue should be looked into once again," he said.

"Let me remind that the NIK has already inspected spending financed by the Justice Fund once before, and the money used to buy this software came from this very fund," he added.

The invoices that the NIK made public today come from this first inspection. At the time, Marian Banaś was not in charge of the Office yet. Current senator Krzysztof Kwiatkowski was NIK president then.

Piotr Świerczek said that reporters had sent questions to the NIK and were long convinced that large part of these documents were classified. However, once the NIK sent answers to the questions, it turned out the two invoices were fully available to the public, the reporter said. He added that documents relating to money spent on implementation of the system were classified.

"The documents include copies of two invoices, in which a Matic company is mentioned. This is a company which has been working with Polish police, as well as special services. It has held required certificates in arms and software trade since 2001. It also has access to public and classified data from the Internal Security Agency," Świerczek said.

The reporter added that "it was through this very company that the 'purchase of special technology for detecting and preventing crime' had been conducted". "Obviously, the word 'Pegasus' is not mentioned in the invoices, but the mentioned price is adequate to that of this software. It's 25 million zlotys. The remaining funds, approx. 10 million zlotys, were spent on implementation of this system," he said.

Reports from the Associated Press that NSO Group's Pegasus software was used to hack the phones of government critics, including a senator who ran the election campaign for the largest opposition party in 2019, have led to accusations that special services are undermining democratic norms.

Government figures had previously declined to comment on whether or not Poland has access to Pegasus, citing laws on official secrets. In December, a deputy defence minister said Poland did not use Pegasus.

However, in extracts from an interview with conservative weekly Sieci published last week, the leader of Poland's ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) indicated that Polish services had the software. "Pegasus is a program that is used by services combating crime and corruption in many countries...It would be bad if the Polish services did not have this type of tool," Jaroslaw Kaczynski was quoted as saying. He rejected opposition claims that Pegasus had been used against political opponents as "utter nonsense".

Asked about Pegasus during a news conference, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said it would be a "disgrace" if Polish services did not have access to such surveillance technology.

Krzysztof Brejza, the senator who, according to research bt the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab project and Amnesty International had his phone hacked in 2019 while running the election campaign of the largest opposition party, said: "It is Jaroslaw Kaczynski who is talking nonsense." "Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his people...took away Poles' right to free elections," he told TVN24. 

Earlier this week, Poland's upper house of parliament - the Senate - approved launching a special committee that will look into reported cases of Pegasus surveillance software usage.