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WARSAW — Former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro dodged police for hours Friday and stymied a parliamentary commission investigating alleged misuse of Pegasus spyware.
Ziobro finally handed himself over at the headquarters of TV Republika, a sympathetic broadcaster, after launching a televised attack against the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The police then led him in front of the commission, which considered Ziobro’s tardiness an unjustified absence and sought a court order for a 30-day detention. The commission closed the hearing without Ziobro’s testimony.
At TV Republika, Ziobro spoke of “political theatrics” while police officers waited in the lobby, where Ziobro eventually descended to turn himself in.
“Violence and breaking the law are the standards of the Tusk government,” Ziobro told viewers of TV Republika.
Ziobro is the key figure in a probe seeking to find out why and how the government of Law and Justice (PiS) — which was in power in Poland between 2015 and 2023 — allegedly purchased Pegasus spyware to use against political opponents.
The spyware purchase is part of a wider scandal, the Tusk government says, involving alleged misuse of the justice fund — a special pool of money under the justice minister’s control. Though meant to help crime victims, prosecutors say the fund was misused for political purposes. According to the government, more than 112 million złoty (€26 million) was improperly taken from the fund.
Ziobro did not show up to the commission’s previous hearings — apparently due to cancer treatment he was undergoing — so it sought a court order to have him escorted to the hearing on Friday.
PiS considers the Pegasus commission “illegal” following a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal issued in September last year.
Likewise, Ziobro — a member of PiS — called the court order to escort him to the hearing illegal.
The Tusk coalition, which ousted PiS from power after an October election, has ignored the Constitutional Tribunal as a PiS holdout. PiS stacked it with loyalists as part of controversial judiciary reform, which the European Union considers unlawful.
“An arrest would make Minister Ziobro available for questioning,” said Zbigniew Zembaczyński, a member of the investigating commission from the biggest party in the ruling coalition, of the commission’s detention motion.
“This isn’t a commission, these people are impostors,” Michał Wójcik, a PiS lawmaker, told media in the parliament building.
The Friday commotion lands during a campaign ahead of the presidential election this May. PiS has been fighting to retain its edge over the Tusk administration by seeking a president friendly to its agenda who, like incumbent Andrzej Duda, is willing to derail the Tusk government’s efforts. The current government lacks the parliamentary votes to override presidential vetoes.
