Prosecutor's office launches inquiry into hacking of senator Brejza's phone

Ostrów Wielkopolski District Prosecutor's Office spokesman Maciej Meler said on Tuesday that the inquiry has been launched as a necessary part of legal proceedings.

Civic Coalition senator Krzysztof Brejza notified the prosecutor's office at the end of September, 2021. He filed a complaint regarding an unlawful seizure of correspondence from his phone at the time when he was Civic Platform campaign chief. As he mentioned in the notification, the seized content was later made public by the state-controlled public television.

In an interview for "Sieci" weekly, deputy prime minister for security affairs and PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński confirmed that Poland had purchased Pegasus, but dismissed the question of using this system as an exaggerated issue. He also downplayed the importance of the surveillance system having been bought with funds from the Justice Fund (administrated by the Ministry of Justice).

Poland's opposition-controlled upper house of parliament, the Senate, created the commission to look into the allegations of phone hacking, but it has no official investigative powers.

The PiS-controlled lower house of parliament has resisted calls for a full investigative commission. No PiS senators took part in the commission on Monday. A spokesman said the government did not see the need for any further investigative proceedings as surveillance was only possible with the agreement of a court, adding that if someone thought the law had been broken they could take legal action. Citizen Lab says the phone of Senator Krzysztof Brejza was broken into 33 times in 2019 and data taken from it. At the time, Brejza was running the election campaign of the largest opposition party, Civic Platform. Other victims Citizen Lab has identified are prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, a critic of the government's judicial reforms, and Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented opposition figures.