2024-11-08 14:40 update: 2024-11-08, 14:42
Fot. PAP/Leszek Szymański
Poland's lower house investigative commission into the previous government's use of Pegasus spyware announced that it would ask the prosecutor general to lift the immunity of former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, the head of the commission said on Friday.
Magdalena Sroka, the head of the commission, said during a press conference that this Friday, Szymon Holownia, the speaker of Sejm, the lower house, would send a formal application to lift Ziobro's immunity to Adam Bodnar, the prosecutor general.
The commission seeks to waive Ziobro's immunity in order to request the court to allow for his detention and forcible appearing for questioning.
The head of the commission said that the "prosecutor's general office will check the application against formal requirements and will ask the lower house of parliament to begin the stripping of immunity procedure."
On Monday, the commission was scheduled to conduct a hearing of Ziobro, the justice minister in the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government, currently the main opposition party, in connection with the Pegasus case. However, according to the head of the commission, he did not come in for questioning for the fourth time in a row.
Ziobro had excused his absence twice in the past with a medical expert's opinion stating that the condition of his health would not allow him to take part in the hearing due to his cancer treatment.
Afterwards, the commission appointed its own medical expert who found that Ziobro's health would not prevent him from appear at the hearing.
Later on Friday, the Regional Court in Warsaw imposed a disciplinary fine of PLN 2,000 (EUR 463) on Ziobro for his unjustified absence before the commission.
Soon after taking over power from the nationalist-leaning PiS in December 2023, the pro-European government of Donald Tusk launched a parliamentary commission investigating the illegal use of highly-invasive Pegasus spyware by PiS against the then opposition politicians, lawyers and other figures criticising the PiS government. (PAP)
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