Both politicians refused to attend their scheduled hearings on Tuesday, citing a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that deemed the investigation unconstitutional.
In response, commission leaders requested fines of 3,000 PLN (€720) each and warned that Wąsik could be forcibly brought in.
The inquiry focuses on the legality of Poland’s purchase and use of Pegasus between 2015 and 2023, which, according to the Supreme Audit Office, was funded in 2017 with 25 million PLN (€6 million) from the Justice Fund.
PiS politicians have consistently boycotted the proceedings, calling them a “political spectacle,” while commission members accuse them of evading accountability.
Members of the Polish parliamentary commission investigating Pegasus spyware, including chair Magdalena Sroka (second from the left), are seen during a session in Warsaw, where summoned witness Maciej Wąsik failed to appear. Photo: PAP/Albert Zawada
What is Pegasus, and why is its use in Poland controversial?
Pegasus is an advanced spyware system developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, designed to fully infiltrate smartphones.
Once a device is infected, Pegasus grants access to all its data - including text messages, emails, photos, and audio or video recordings - and allows remote activation of the microphone and camera without the user’s knowledge.
Although it was intended for use by security agencies to combat terrorism and organized crime, allegations have surfaced in several countries, including Poland, that governments have used it for illegal surveillance of political opposition, journalists, and civil society activists.
A parliamentary inquiry in Poland is now investigating who was responsible for purchasing Pegasus and how exactly it was used by Polish authorities between 2015 and 2023.
As Fakty TVN reported in 2022, Poland purchased the Pegasus system after a 2016 meeting between Prime Minister Beata Szydło, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his residence, as reported by The New York Times.
This is how NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden responds in an interview with The Guardian to the Pegasus Project revelations about the widespread misuse of NSO Group’s spyware by governments worldwide.
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Source: IAR/PAP/YouTube.com/The Guardian/Fakty TVN/The New York Times