An opposition MP has been charged with alleged crimes committed while serving in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government. Michał Woś, however, not only denies wrongdoing but argues that the charges are invalid because they were brought by illegitimately appointed prosecutors.
Woś on Tuesday appeared at the National Prosecutor’s Office in connection with his role in alleged abuses relating to the purchase of Pegasus spyware using justice ministry funds in 2017, when he was a deputy justice minister. Woś also later served as environment minister.
Afterwards, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office announced that the politician had been charged with exceeding his authority and failing to fulfil his obligations, crimes that could carry a prison sentence of up to ten years. He was also placed under police supervision.
The charges were made possible after Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition – which replaced PiS in power at the end of last year – voted to strip Woś of parliamentary immunity in June following a request from Adam Bodnar, who serves as prosecutor general and justice minister.
The case relates to a decision made in 2017 to transfer 25 million zloty (€5.8 million) from a justice ministry fund to the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) to finance the purchase of Pegasus, a type of powerful Israel-made spyware that allows the harvesting of data from mobile devices.
Bodnar said that those funds were transferred despite “it being known that the [CBA] did not meet the conditions for obtaining such financial support” and Woś therefore failed to fulfil his duties regarding managing public funds.
In April, Bodnar revealed that hundreds of people had been surveilled using Pegasus during PiS’s time in power. Some of those targets were prominent opponents of the government, including the manager of the opposition’s election campaign in 2019.
Source Credit: https://notesfrompoland.com