Justice minister seeks to strip opposition MP of immunity over funds spent on spyware

The pro-European government led by Donald Tusk that took power in December has made holding those it accuses of wrongdoing under the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) administration a priority. Investigations into the alleged misuse of Pegasus spyware have been central to this.

One allegation facing the former government is that it misused money from the Justice Fund, which is designed to help victims of crime, to purchase Pegasus.

Justice Minister Adam Bodnar said on Tuesday he had written to Parliament Speaker Szymon Hołownia requesting that former deputy justice minister Michał Woś lose his immunity from prosecution for his role in buying Pegasus.

Prosecutors say 25 million zlotys ($6.38 million) was spent on the system.

"The whole matter concerns the use of money from the Justice Fund for the purchase of Pegasus-type software, as well as the use of public funds for the purchase of a licence to use the Pegasus system," Bodnar told a news conference.

He said Woś could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, adding that prosecutors were working on requests to lift others' immunity.

Woś has labelled the accusations against him "absurd" and says he is proud to have helped buy tools used to fight crime.

The Justice Fund lies at the heart of a broader scandal, with local media reporting that lawmakers from the previous government used it to curry favour among rural voters by, for example, buying fire engines or equipment for country housewives' associations.

Tomasz Mraz, the former head of the Justice Fund Department in the Justice Ministry, told a parliamentary commission last week that decisions on disbursing funds were made in a "dishonest" way and that former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro had the final say.

Sovereign Poland, the arch-conservative junior partner in the previous government which is led by Ziobro and of which Woś is a member, dismissed Mraz's testimony as "nonsense and manipulation" and said Mraz was not a credible witness.