According to the newspaper, Poland's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) hacked the phone of Jacek Karnowski, mayor of the coastal city of Sopot, 10 to 20 times between 2018 and 2019.
The timeline coincides with Karnowski’s activity as a mastermind behind the opposition's campaign for the Senate, the upper house of parliament, as part of Poland’s general elections, Gazeta Wyborcza said.
The opposition did win the Senate in 2019.
The liberal broadsheet, which is highly critical of the government and the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, says it found Karnowski’s name on a list of monitored individuals made available to multiple media outlets that were part of the Pegasus Project consortium.
“This is a violation of privacy and human dignity,” Karnowski told Gazeta Wyborcza.
“Those who monitored their political opponents should be brought before the State Tribunal,” he added.
The State Tribunal (Trybunał Stanu) is a judicial body that rules on the constitutional liability of people holding the highest offices in the state.
When asked to comment on the revelations, Law and Justice spokesman Rafał Bochenek told state news agency PAP: "I have no confidence in Gazeta Wyborcza."
He added: "I believe that [security] services in Poland work in accordance with regulations and procedures."
The news came amid reports that the Pegasus software, developed by an Israeli company, had been illegally used in Poland to hack the phones of government critics, including an opposition senator, a former deputy prime minister and a top prosecutor.
In January last year, the spokesman for Poland’s security services, Stanisław Żaryn, reiterated his denial of claims that the conservative government in Warsaw used illegal surveillance methods against its political opponents.
Earlier that month, Poland's conservative leader Jarosław Kaczyński, said in a media interview that Pegasus had not been used against the opposition, calling such claims “utter nonsense.”
In December 2021, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki dismissed accusations by the opposition over Pegasus, warning against "a spiral of fake news."
Poland is set to hold a general election this autumn.
(mo/gs)
Source: Gazeta Wyborcza, PAP
